Kydra Reefs – Rams Head Peak Walk – 24 August 2019

Kydra Reefs – Rams Head Peak Walk – 24 August 2019

The Geehi bushwalking Club undertook a walk on 24 August in the Kydra Reefs area south of Cooma.

Nine walkers including leader Peter Davis met at Cooma North car park at 0800 where a briefing and car pooling was conducted. We headed south of Cooma on the Monaro Highway before heading down the Old Dangelong Road. This scenic route to Dangelong Station involved a slow drive along what is now mostly paddock tracks with numerous gates to negotiate. The effects of the drought were sadly evident with dusty kangaroos making not much effort to hop away. Passing the historic station buildings we continued on until driving under a wire suspension foot bridge, some 60m long, over the frosty Numeralla River. We stopped to marvel at the now defunct engineering before crossing a ford covered in ice.

Another kilometre on we entered private property (with permission) and parked the cars at GR083713 on the Kydra 1:25,000 sheet. We walked north through extremely dry grazing land with the rugged nature reserve to the east of us until hitting a well maintained fire trail at GR088727 on the Kybeyan sheet. We followed this for another 1.5 kilometres, stopping at Corey’s Hut for morning tea, until turning east at GR088740. We now entered very dry open scrub with the aim of getting to Rams Head summit for lunch, some three kilometres further east. The group then diverted from our planned route up a stony ridge to GR105744. As we crested this craggy feature with its vertical slabs of rock on the spine a bit after noon, we could see our original goal a mere 1360 metres (by GPS) distant. Due to the extremely rugged country and an estimate of at least two hours to achieve the summit we decided to enjoy the stunning views of cliffs to the south and the beckoning summit whilst we ate lunch in an icy breeze. We then decided to head back at this point rather than chasing the summit which would have had us hiking out in the dark.

We followed the same route back, finding fresh gold fossickings on the way, to arrive at the cars by 1500 hrs having enjoyed a delightful hike with stunning scenery. We opted for a quicker gate free drive home via the ‘new’ Dangelong Road which meets the Monaro Highway at Rock Flat. All in all, a lovely walk, without going to extremes.

One of our newer members contributed also:

‘ I recently joined Geehi Bushwalking Club, and this walk to the Ram’s head was my first walk with the club. We started with a carpool in Cooma, then headed up to Kybeyan. After a briefing of the route, timeframe and what to expect by the leader, Peter, we set off.

The experience is absolutely great. Going off track with contour maps and GPSs is something that’s better done in a group. The safety side of things has been taken care of by Peter, who has extensive experience of walking in the bushes and guiding. So all is left is just enjoying the walk and the view. We didn’t quite get to the summit due to time constraints, but we had lunch at a spot with wonderful vista, and the snowy tip of Mt. Kosciuszko can be seen from distance.

Group members were energetic and very good fun to get along with. It only added more spice to this experience with interesting stories and jokes.’

2019-08-27T08:04:11+10:00Geehi Bushwalking Club, Walks|