Black Mountain Tower in Spring sunshine

Today was a great day. It was Monday. It was the beginning of October. Most of us weren’t at work! And the SUN WAS SHINING. This is what Canberra is about!

Boyfriend and I got on the scooter for the first weekend ride in months and decided to make good use of the 2012-13 Canberra Entertainment Book’s two-for-one voucher to head up Black Mountain Tower. After five years in Canberra, I’ve never been! We’ve always said we’ll do it after we’ve done a walk up Black Mountain (given if you don’t you just end up in a carpark with no views!), but we’ve done that once and you can’t take dogs, and we’re loathe to go anywhere without our Whippet. A ride was the perfect opportunity!

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Mt Painter

We’re incredibly lucky to have so many good walks within Canberra. My favourite trek of these is Mt Painter. It’s nestled behind (in front of?) Cook and if you’ve driven down William Hovell Drive you’ve likely driven right past it.

Entrance from Bussell St, Cook to Mt Painter

Dominating Mt Tennent

Mt Tennent in the distance

Mt Tennent is a bastard*. There’s no other way to put it. The first time I braved it was August 2011, and on finishing it I made the promise myself to never, ever do it again. That was until I got my new Heart Rate Monitor, which piqued my curiosity – if Mt Tennent is such a hard slog, how many calories does it burn? Of course, the only way to find out was by doing it again.  And that’s how, exactly six months later, I found myself back on Mt Tennent, and cursing it.

Black Mountain stroll

Looking back towards Belco

Along with Mt Ainslie, Black Mountain (or Telstra Tower) is hard to miss – making it a pretty obvious choice for a Sunday afternoon walk.

Tower peaking through... example of the type of footpath

There are many routes you can take to get up to the top, but we took one of the ones that starts at Belconnen Way. You can pull into a small ‘carpark’ and basically it’s a straight hike towards the mountain.

Black Mountain looks far away, but you cover ground quickly. With my numerous stops to catch my breath, it took us less than an hour to get to the top. The path starts narrow, then gets very wide, before you climb up well placed stones to Canberra’s well known landmark. Well, to Canberra’s well known landmark’s carpark.

More footpath examples

The most unfortunate and well known fact about getting to the top of Black Mountain when you drive up there is the same as when you walk – you can’t see anything. Sure, there are glimpses of the suburbs as you climb up, but once you’re at the top, good luck seeing past the tall trees… unless you’ve brought your wallet and you’re willing to go up to Telstra Tower for the view.

I think Black Mountain is a great walk, but it’s not somewhere I’d be taking any out of town visitors to show off the views of Canberra for free. You’re going to get much better views from Mt Ainslie or nearby Mt Painter (next to Cook – and my favourite Canberra mountain).

But, I won’t deny it – there’s a definite sense of accomplishment from climbing Black Mountain.

Check out the map here.

Infamous Telstra Tower at the top