Sometimes walks just go off track

Today (Friday) Trevor figured he would do the walk to Cooleman Court unescorted. That was fine by me as i was running around picking up swimming related stuff from hither and thither. Having walked along the Stanhope Highway and started down the off track he thought that he had picked the wrong exit. He continued along Cooleman Ridge for another kilometre or so until he decided that he really should have continued down the earlier off track. This certainly added quite a bit of distance to his walk by the time he reached Cooleman Court and then returned home.

In the meantime I had decided to do a circuit of Mt Taylor. Instead of entering near Inkster Street I went in through the Colquhoun Street entrance. Not a problem ... just a little longer. Tramping along the track I came to rock feature and my memory was that it was possible to reach a higher level fire track part way up the rocks. So up I went. When I decided that I seemed to have climbed a fair way I checked for the whereabouts of the powerlines that ran along the higher track. Oops, they were not above me but some considerable distance down the mountain.

At this point I decided to keep going up to the summit. This involved scrub bashing, scrambling (using hands as well as feet to move upwards) and generally picking my way along kangaroo runs. It took quite a bit of time to reach the meadow just belong the summit. I was thankful that I had avoided large patches of blackthorn as these can really rip into the unwary.

By the time I reached the top I was running short of time as we were going to the Ginninderra Swimming Club club night and then on to the Burley Griffin presentation night. I went down "my" track to the Colquhoun Street exit. I needed to really watch my footing as I could not afford to slip with the twisted left ankle and battered right knee.

Next time I'll pay more attention to my location when varying my route up and around the mountain.