Orroral Valley to Rendezvous Creek
This walk started at Orroral Valley in Namadgi National Park, just south of Canberra. We walked up to Nursery Swamp, turned right, and made our way up and over a saddle to Rendezvous Creek.
From memory I think this was a three day walk. I think the first campsite was somewhere in the first off-track section near Nursery Swamp, and the second may have been near Glendale.
Note that there are two off-track sections, so you will need good bush navigation skills. Be prepared to make your own way in these areas, as conditions may have changed, and my memory of those routes may be wrong.
There is a fair bit of walking beside Boboyan Road too, which is admittedly not that great, and then another bit of road walking back to the Nursery Swamp carpark. You could probably make this an overnight walk by leaving a second vehicle at the junction of Rendezvous Creek and Boboyan Road.
In July 2023 I walked the initial section to Nursery Swamp again. This was roughly three years after the Orroral Valley fire in January 2020, The original walk was done in May 2006, which was also roughly three years after the previous large fire in 2003.
From the July 2023 revisit.
It doesn't look particularly swampy from here in the middle of winter due to all the dry grass.
From the original walk in 2006. Here we see Trevor saluting the occupants of a cleverly disguised alien spacecraft near Rendezvous Creek.
Much of Namadgi was burnt in the 2003 bushfires, but a surprising amount of the Rendezvous Creek area seems to have been unaffected. The kangaroos are certainly back in good numbers, and most clumps of trees in the valley had a mob making use of the shade on this morning.
The hills seem to have born the brunt of the 2003 fires, and the newly exposed granite gives them a look reminiscent of a Greek island.
Looking towards the Boboyan Road near the end of Rendezvous Creek.
The grey-green foliage here belongs to young wattle trees (acacias) that have sprung up since the fires. They will probably look quite spectacular when they're in flower.