The Canberra Centenary Trail is launched mid-morning Sunday, and it’s hard to know where to start along the 145km of track. But, of course, for me, it has to be Belconnen.
Section 4 of the Trail stretches from Black Mountain to Hall Village. We choose to start in the John Knight Memorial Park on Lake Ginninderra.
It’s usually full of wonderful wild life, and no more so than today.
Ducks! PELICAN!
It’s also one of the official launch sites of the Trail.
The maps that we’ve been able to find online to date have been… well, indecipherable in their detail. I grab a hard copy map from the Canberra 100 stall, and it’s a little more helpful (but where can we find ones which have detail AND are legible?). Most importantly, it shows exactly what dogs can’t go. (I’m later alerted to its existence online!)
Handy-sized map
We’re familiar with the Lake Ginninderra circuit, but the Trail only goes so far as the eastern bridge…
Belconnen’s changing skyline
… before the stairs at the end take us down…
Note: these are very steep stairs!
… and under the bridge …
… and now we’re really on our way.
The trail takes us on along the western side of the tip of Lake G, with the Belconnen Town Centre behind us. The new suburb of Lawson stays to the right of Lake G, and even though William Slim Drive is to our left, we can’t hear or see it (for a while, at least!).
Lake G still peeks through on the right
Belconnen Town Centre gets further and further away
The scenery stays the same for quite a distance, but then some interesting trees appear, and there are a few bridge underpasses which eventually take us across the road to walk alongside the Palmerville Heritage Park.
Boyfriend senses that I’m on a mission to walk to Hall, so gets early commitment from me that we’ll walk ‘just as far as the Barton Highway roundabout’. We spot it a while back, but, true to my word, I walk as close as possible to it… and then reluctantly turn around.
Almost at the roundabout – Percival Hill (which we ‘climbed’ a few weeks back) is ahead
The 5ish kilometres to here have seemed perfectly reasonable… until I realise that we’re walking back. Oh.
We make it, though!
Back just before the start of John Knight Memorial Park
We’ve done just this teeny tiny bit of the map!
Our walk probably hasn’t been the most interesting of , but we’ve seen some lovely wildlife, and enjoyed the always lush John Knight Memorial Park, and it’s forced me off my beloved Lake G circuit and through a well maintained path towards Gungahlin, on which I’d never before set foot.
But even though we do around 11k return, we’ve only done 5k on the map (and no where near all of Section 4). It’s tiny! So much more to do…
… and yet such a worthy goal.
And the best thing is, we’ve made a start.
Date: Sunday, 27 October 2013
Cost: Free (plus mild sunburn)
Worthwhile factor: Worthwhile
Want more? Here’s the overview map and a good place to start is the TAMS page. But the BEST place to start is with John Evans’ blog; Canberra’s best walker has already done the entire Trail (final leg here).
Related articles
- Images of food and Lake Ginninderra (yummylummy.com)
- Mt Taylor (inthetaratory.wordpress.com)
- Latin Restaurants Around Canberra (anulasa.org)
- SPIN Saturday (inthetaratory.wordpress.com)
- Autumn Downunder: Canberra surrounds (owlflyaway.wordpress.com)
- Canberra Nara Candle Festival (inthetaratory.wordpress.com)
- Percival Hill (inthetaratory.wordpress.com)
- Canberra International Riesling challenge tasting (inthetaratory.wordpress.com)
In The Taratory 
Between us we’ve knocked off ten kms in total 😀
Yours had a steep climb tho so you are way ahead! 😉
Looks good Tara. Thanks for the mention too 🙂
That used to be my daily commute back in the days when I worked for a living. There are alternatives to the steep stairs. The best route for cyclists is to go under Ginninderra Drive on the east side of the lake, then round (270°) and up over the bridge on the north side of the road. The path is wider on that side. No stairs, no steep slopes.