A trek to the heart of Namadgi is well worth the effort, writes Rupert Barnett
Do you recall your first walk down the track that leads from Yankee Hat carpark to the artwork left by the First Nation occupants at the base of the Hat? You were probably concentrating on the track, and didn’t notice that as it descended to the bridge over Bogong Creek, the big hills you’d seen up the valley ahead had disappeared. Soon though you’d climbed gently and the peaks were beckoning through this gateway into the hills; you wonder what it’s like up there. Then your attention switches to the approaching Yankee Hat Shelter.
But perhaps you were intrigued by those big humps and later turned to your map or screen. You worked out their names – Mounts Kelly, Burbidge, Namadgi – and realised they are part of the major range system that separates the basins of the Gudgenby and Cotter rivers. It also looked as though a fit walker might be able to reach them just by following up the nearby creeks and spurs. But where did those names come from?
Some online searching will reveal that Mount Burbidge remembers Dr Nancy Burbidge, and the articles describe her as an accomplished botanist who, among many interests, was a leader in creating the NPA with the aim of achieving national park status for much of the ACT’s bush and forest lands. She died in 1977, two years before that was achieved, but was commemorated by the subsequent naming of the middle peak after her.
However, you probably won’t find out much about the names of those other two mountains without going to the online files of the NPA Bulletin. The March 2000 issue contains articles about the people and activities of the time, and on page 13 notes ‘Mount Namadgi with its Aboriginal stone arrangements, and Mount Kelly, named, it is thought, after a member of a survey team defining the watershed boundary of the ACT’.
Mount Kelly looking east to Mount Burbidge. Photo by Rupert Barnett
So what’s it like to walk to this area? Many sources can help answer that – friends who have done it, walking club meetings and members, websites and books. Most people will want to camp among the tops for two or three nights to allow visits to its features. But the important factor in getting to it is the condition of the forest floors, and that is defined by their histories – typically scrub is cleared by a fire, but many sharp sticks remain. Two or so years later the stakes have largely gone, and the walking easier. Then, for the next two decades, understory and ridge-top scrub areas are usually getting more impenetrable by the year…
The map suggests it is a grand place, and this is only one of a number of gateways into the breadth of this national park. Will your interest and effort be rewarded? Hear from a member of the Canberra Alpine Club who joined a walk to Mount Kelly in 1962. He wrote, ’The view in all directions is spectacular, very wild and tumbled…’.
