Hello!
Join me on a relaxed trip back through time as we venture up the camel's hump in tidbinbilla. It'll be relatively easy and we'll take it nice and slow :) The total length of the walk is ~15 kms.
Click this link to see the route we'll be taking: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Mountain+Creek+Carpark,+Paddys+River+ACT/-35.4091917,148.9022882/@-35.4154576,148.8899941,15.68z/data=!4m9!4m8!1m5!1m1!1s0x6b17c5c70dfc5757:0xcc4a5a311b7f224a!2m2!1d148.8897945!2d-35.4568754!1m0!3e2
We'll begin at mountain creek carpark, in the shannon's flat adamellite, a rock unit part of the murrumbidgee batholith (basically a big unit of igneous rock that cooled underground). The shannon's flat adamellite is an igneous rock produced by melting of sediments! This rock crystallised around 420 million years ago!!
As we walk further north, we'll arrive at some older sedimentary rocks ( deposited ~450 million yrs ago).The sediments which made these rocks were once underwater in an ancient sea!
We'll walk up to the peak of camel's hump ( a bit of scrambling required)
After that we'll continue for an extra km or so, close to the intersection where the fire trail we were following earlier meets tidbinbilla range rd. Here, we will be at an intriguing and not well understood spot (literally emblazoned by multiple question marks in the geological map of the area), where we'll come across some rocks which probably originally existed in very deep water, likely at the bottom of the ocean where there wasn't much oxygen! Here, we may be able to find fossils of a strange ancient organisms called graptolites (greek for 'written rock'! These are so weird that the biologist who invented our current system of naming organisms actually thought they weren't living organisms, calling them 'pictures resembling fossils rather than true fossils')!!
When you sign up please let me know if you have a car and can drive! Also let me know if you have a pass to tidbinbilla! If I don't know you, please write a brief description of your experience level in bushwalking.
What to bring:
- approx. 1.5 L water (It is going to be hot!!!)
-a hat (It is going to be hot and probably sunny too!!!)
-some snacks
-a jacket/warm clothes in case it gets a bit chilly
-head torch! (just in case we are stuck in the dark which hopefully shouldn't happen)
Leave ANU sport at 12pm. Drive to mountain creek carpark (approx. 1 hr drive). Start walking at 1pm. Spend max 7 hours on the walk (it should be ~15kms total). Finish up the walk by sundown and return to ANU sport ideally around 8pm (9pm latest).