Trails & tracks from Tolosa St 2016

Because of the weather, the walk today is not going to be Platform Peak but trails and tracks at Tolosa St. Bob is our leader.

Before we start however, you should know that Bob has returned to us after some time away at the Australian Masters Athletics National Track & Field Championships which were held in Adelaide SA.

How did he do you ask? Pretty well as it happens.

Gold medal no less!

I had a look online at the results and found a couple of photos of Bob in action. I also found out that not only did he get gold, but bronze in the Cross Country and also in the 10000 metre run.

Bob never tries that hard when he's walking with us!

That was from the 10000 metre run.

I found a couple of Bob in action in his gold medal event, the Steeple Chase.

We always suspected Bob could walk on water

Turns out not to be true

I know several people asked Bob about the water hazard, so the photo below should show the difficulty. That IS NOT Bob I hasten to add!

Not Bob!

Congratulations to Bob for all his achievements.


Now, onto to our Tuesday walk. Just to remind you it's from the end of Tolosa St.

At the starting gate

Through the gates and left, heading for Limekiln Gully Reservoir

Just below Limekiln Gully Reservoir

The road turns to dirt and we have a little wobble when we start on the wrong track. Bob had done this walk in the other direction, but we were soon on track.

You can tell Bob's back. Sorry for the blurry photo

The tension of passing this sign gave me the shakes. Now we're starting on a long uphill climb. Soon we'll be on the Limekiln Trail and be legit.

We're all equipped for wet weather, but during the whole walk we only had a couple of light showers.

This could be passed off as the remains of a space alien

Probably tried to keep up with Bob.

Looking down on Limekiln Gully Reservoir

Long climb

This shows the angle of the slope

As we walk along we notice many fossils present in the rock. Strange to think this was below sea level at one point in time.

Typical fossil impressions

Now we can put a name to the track

We continue climbing until we come to a junction and a place for Morning Tea.

While we're having our break, Bob points out a track and suggests we explore it. He's been down it before some time ago, but isn't sure where it goes.

Some elect to stay behind while the rest of us set off.

Hazy hills in the distance

Setting off to explore this side track

The track comes to a house. Looking at the map below, it finally reaches Lenah Valley Rd.

We turnaround and return to the others.

It appears they've taken up some sort of folk dancing while we were away

Now, there are two ways up from here. 1. Wide, modern, well made fire track or 2. the one we take.

Looks like the original way up

It's a long slog up now

Old fence from old farm

Finally, we reach the top. We're back on the Priest Fire trail in open bush, and it's good walking. Along the way we get glimpses of a rainbow part way up Mt. Wellington.

You can just make out the rainbow between the trees

This one leads to the end of Lenah Valley Road

Those in front had to drag Bob away from this

This runs from our Morning Tea spot back down to the park

We catch up with others who gave the long climb a miss

Now we find a place for lunch.

Part of the North-South track

Good place for lunch. Plenty of seating

A couple of roos moved away from us, too fast to photograph.

After lunch, we followed this small track, which is the North-South track, down and back to the park.

As we were on foot, Bob allowed us to take some shortcuts which are normally not allowed.

We almost feel guilty taking a shortcut. Almost

Back down to the cars

We only saw one other person and that was a runner just before we reached the cars.

We had 12 (I think) walkers and covered 7.75km in 3:13hrs. Applying the rule re climbing you can add 9km to the total.

Click here to download GPX file