Square Rock Walk - January 2011

Now that I’ve started getting my flickr together I will start to post some of the walks that I did earlier in the year. I’ll also post up a few from last year, before getting on to doing some more walks and putting them up more or less as they happen.

One sunny day in late January I, and my most beloved collaborator (aka. carrier of extra camera equipment and brother extraordinaire), took it upon our (slightly unfit) selves to undertake the Square Rock walk in Namadgi National Park (Australian Capital Territory).

My (mostly) willing accomplice (I promised him I would post his photo despite his protestations)

It was a beautiful day and we walked from the Smokers Gap Carpark along the narrow forest trail, complete with shrubs glistening with morning dew, until we crossed the road and headed uphill. There were many flowers to be seen and also many skinks darting this way and that in an effort to escape the rather large person (I’ll only speak for myself here or I may lose a camera gear carrier) blundering along the track.

Spencers Skink (Pseudemoia spenceri)

Some way into the walk (~2.5km), the forest gave way to an open herb-field and bog known as Smokers Flat (I’ve no idea why all the names seem to pertain to smokers but this is not what attracted us to the walk - whatever the rumours would have you believe). On this day, and in this unusually wet season, the area was almost all boggy so we decided to continue on rather than wet our boots overly. The area is known to contain some rare plants (and a rare bird species) and we had no wish to damage it by trampling all over the place, particularly as it would have been even more susceptible than normal.

A not so rare, but beautiful, Tall Bluebell (Wahlenbergia stricta)

Less than kilometre before walk ends at Square Rock is another trail leading to the Orroral Valley Lookout, so we made this little side journey and took our ease on a rock overlooking it. It was here that a skink, taking no particular interest in us, darted to and fro upon the rock on which we were sitting apparently quite taken with a small orange lichen that was there, we were content with our muesli bars however.

Spencer's Skink munching on lichen

Then it was onward to the Square Rock itself, although my comrade did point out that whoever named it was either very imaginative or lacked even basic geometry when calling the rocks square. I did suggest he was being a little hard on them, particularly considering all the smoke that was seemingly around at the time these places were being named.

Granite boulders at the peak

I digress, we had our remaining vittles upon the ancient granite boulders, some of which were square-ish, looking at the spectacular view. The skeletons of the snow gums (burned in the 2003 bushfires) were striking against the vivid summer sky. A small climb (using the steel ladders provided) gained you a vantage point with uninterrupted views to the mountains north and west.

Looking west from Square Rock

On days like these you realise just how very small we are in the scheme of things. The rocks upon which we were standing were formed when Australia was part of the super continent of Gondwana and the only vertebrates around were still confined to water (I make this statement as no expert in geology or palaeontology so if I err here I am happy for those more knowledgeable in such matters to educate me).

Wavy Lobelia (Lobelia dentata)

We did manage to see a Black Rock Skink (Egernia saxitilis intermedia), which is much larger than all other skinks in the ACT apart from Cunningham’s skink, which it replaces (in terms of ecological niche) above 1000m (Snakes and Reptiles of the ACT, Bennet 1997). I do regret however, that my camera was some way from my person and by the time I had retrieved it the little fellow had left his ledge for the privacy of a deep crevice.

Alpine Baeckia (Baeckia gunniana)

After lunch we retraced our steps, deciding that we didn’t have quite the legs (or time) to go the long way back via, yep you guessed it, Smokers Trail. The whole walk was around 10km and fairly easy, even for a middle-aged fellow with a beer enhanced waistline like myself.

For the full photo set from this walk click here.

Note: As with all my posts I will make every effort to name plants and animals with both common and scientific names. Of course, I am certainly going to be in error occasionally and would certainly appreciate if those were pointed out to me (as kindly as possible please!)