9-12 April 1982 Woila – Dampier – Bendethera
This was a 4 day walk over Easter 1982 with an old friend Paul McCann who I had first met on my Alpine Walking Trail walk in 1975.
The essence of this walk came from the book “Bushwalking Near Canberra” by the Canberra Bushwalking Club, 1974, walk 20 “The Woila” and 12 “Bendethera”.
For the first part of the walk we followed their route approximately down to Woila Ck where we camped. We had parked near Pikes Saddle. Then we climbed on the north up the side valley and joined a ridgeline east of Mother Woila. We then followed the ridgeline around towards Dampier. Somewhere along there we were able to camp.
The 3rd day we struggled along the ridge to Dampier Trig which is on the 4WD track from the Cooma Rd down to Bendethera which we followed down to camp. The last day we took the trail along to the Bendethera Caves then Con ridge up to the west near the caves, then followed a 4WD trail on the north south Minima Range ridge south to pick up the the trail past Dampier Trig and then a long trudge back to Pikes Saddle.
This had been a hard walk. The going on Days 1 and 2 were quite slow and we had to drop and climb a lot with some difficult terriain.
You can see the style of the times. Old H frame packs, dunlop volley sandshoes, long hair, Paddy Palin heavy japara tents, solid thermal sleeping mats, no GPS.
