Choose a Walk - Where can I Wander around Canberra and in the ACT?

Many people are asking me where to start walking. A good question - exactly the same one I had when I began.

  1. I reckon the best place to start, for a beginner or for a family with young children, is the Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. Take a drive out (entry ~$10 per car or ~$20 (for we poor old pensioners) per car for an annual pass) and pick up their free brochure. There are some lovely little tracks, including the recently (Apr 08) opened Sanctuary. If you're a bit more adventurous, try the Camel Back fire trail to Camels Hump. The view from the fire trail at the bottom of Camels Hump (or from the cairn at the top) will give you a taste of what the wilder parts of Namadgi National Park are like. The various walks are also described in detail in Graeme Barrow's book Exploring Tidbinbilla on foot: Twenty bushwalks in Canberra's resurrected nature reserve.

  2. Next, drive out to the Namadgi National Park Visitors Centre and purchase (<$10) their Namadgi Map and Guide brochure. It includes schematics of all the recognised/marked walking tracks and trails. That will give you an excellent selection of walks, from easy through medium to hard-ish.

  3. Have a walk in one of the many suburban Canberra Nature Parks or one of the non-urban ACT Parks and Open Space System places. They are listed in the wonderful brochure Get out there!

  4. There are some (no cost) downloadable walk descriptions and maps at:

    Canberra Nature Park maps and some of my walks in these parts are here
    Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve and Old Walking Trails
    Naas Valley to Horse Gully Hut Walking Track
    Square Rock Walking Track
    Yankee Hat Rock Art Site and Walking Track
    Yerrabi Track

  5. Purchase some of the books and browse some of the publicly available Canberra walking club walks programs listed here. Join the Canberra Bushwalking Club , or one of the other walking clubs.

  6. Use the Google Custom Search feature on the index page.

  7. If you have an Excel plugin for your internet browser, download my Excel spreadsheet of walks from here. This lists all the walks on the index page and you will be able to sort them by distance, total climb, grading, where they start from.

  8. Access the index page and do a Find (Ctrl+F), then enter a location (eg. "Mt Namadgi") for a search of text on the index page (not the entire blog). Or use the Google Custom Search on the index page to search the entire blog.

  9. Have a look at the Reference Material here.

  10. Contact me via email.

Back to Walks Index

This page last updated 24Oct11