A perfect 23'C blue sky morning greeted us as we headed out from the old Ororral Valley Tracking Station west toward the Cottor Catchment.
We got good views of the Collimnation Tower at Honey Suckle, the grassy Ororral Valley opens up below to give you a sense of achievement as you climb. We went past the turn offs to Honey Suckle and Smokers Trail, and continued West into the Bimberi Wilderness Area.
It's a tough 10km climb to get out of the Valley, 300 vertical metres, rideable and not too bad, then we're over into the catchment area, and bombing downhill for 10kms to Cottor Hut.
Nestled in a clearing between Bimberi Peak (at 1911m, ACT's highest peak), and Coronet Peak, the hut sure is in a magical part of the Namadgi National Park. Top views to the North from here, and mountains on the East and West are ominiously looming over us. We took some time out here to laze on the grass, soak up the atmosphere and scarf some food.
Although it was hard to get back up off the sundrenched grass, we had to keep moving to get home by lunchtime, so back on the bikes and we headed back the way we came, up about half of the downhill we rode down earlier. It's not at all steep though, so you cruise along at an OK speed. It takes a while though and I was starting to get a little tired at this point. Eventually we made it to the trail that heads North to the Southern tip of Corin Dam, so we jumped the gate and headed off.
The country changes here, lots of baby gum trees are growing beneath their bushfire burnt parents, and the soil is very sandy. This area must have once been a mightly river I guess. There are 3 water crossings of smaller tributary creeks that are no problem, and one crossing of the Cottor, which is feet wetting fun :)
The run to the Dam is pretty flat, a couple of short climbs in it, then down you go to the Dam floor, where we expected to see water, as you can on Google Earth, but there was none. Just a big empty valley, scared along the edges where there used to be water. This end of the dam used to be 10m deep and 100m wide or so at this point, it's now reduced to a 6ft wide, 1/2" deep trickle.
Anyone that doubts global warming, needs to come and take a look out here, the photos just don't capture the scale of it at all, it's jaw dropping and a scary reality check of how much harm we've done to this good planet.
We sat on the edge of the dam for a while and contemplated our changing climate over a snack or two, then headed back out, up and over the ridge and through the 4 water crossings and back onto the main firetrail that links Mt Ginini to the Ororral Valley, where we commenced the 5km climb back to top of the saddle. I was getting really tired by this point, and ontop of the climate change depression, my lack of fitness left me in quite a foul mood :) Luckily though, we soon hit the top, and "commmenced our descent" (as a pilot would say) down to the valley below. I quickly forgot my depressed mood... this section is a blast, we mostly stuck close together and much giggling was heard amongst the crew :) A quick climb back to the top of the ridge and then the steep descent back to the cars offers more fun. A couple of wide corners and near misses kept the entertainment and heart rates up, Neil took every corner sideways and Dan and Tim bounded off every water bar like a pair of jack rabbits :)
All in all a nice gentle 50km run, no real bad climbs in it, just some long easy ones.
A great finish with a healthy serving of downhill to finish :)
A top day out, thanx boys!
The crew:
| Jason | Giant Trance |
| Tim | Kona Kula |
| Dan | Turner Flux |
| Neil | Canondale Scapel |
The Stats:
| Distance | 55.2km |
| Time | 3:47 |
| Climb | 1165vm |
| Speed | 17km/h avg, 55km/h max |
| Date | 17/12/06 |