No. 90 on old hardcopy list of 113 club tramps. “Round Hill – Milburn (George) Farm”
42 km from car park.
2/6/2014 Both. Fort Hill, Barnes and Circle Hill Roads, Milburn. Moderate. Leaders: Ian, Ken
iPhone GPS of route. Shows shorter than actual because I forgot to turn it on until after the first half km! See also Ken’s GPS for his 2010 route map.
Twenty-six turned out for a sunny first tramp for the winter, on back country roads amongst lovely rolling hill farms to the west of Milburn.
Morning Tea at the Finch Road turnoff from Circle Hill Road. (Heb pic)
We lunched where Fort Hill Road ended at a T-junction with Barnes Road, which stretched left to meet Circle Hill Road, and right to form to form a larger route to also turn down Circle Hill Road at its end where both these roads joined to form Douglas Road.
Panorama pic. (The black bit at pic bottom results from my inexpert handing of my panoramic app.) Lunch. Here, Barnes Road goes ahead (in the pic) for the shortcut route and to the right for the longer route.
Ken supplied this report regarding this spot. Thanks Ken. : “The people that did the longer walk, covered 15.2km; Moving time 3hrs 9min; We climbed 374mtrs. I guess the ones that took the shortcut walked about 11km.
I base this on the time taken for us to walk around the longer loop, & the ave speed was 4.8km/hr, & it took us nearly an hour to walk around the loop.”
As said before, the day was sunny and calm, and each ample time to make the climbing bits at bits own pace.
Just a personal thought for road walks. With the growing practice of wearing, and of availability of high-viz vests, a good idea would be for more than just the leaders to be wearing them.
And lastly. What is becoming the customary coffee stop was enjoyed this time at Waihola’s Black Swan. – Ian.
1/9/2010 Both. Fort Hill, Barnes and Circle Hill Roads, Milburn. Moderate. Leaders: Ian, Ken
GPS of route. The short-cut can be readily picked out. (Courtesy, Ken).
The closing days of winter had been wet and paddocks were running with water so the allocation of a sunny first day of Spring to this new road walk was opportune as it turned out. 19 trampers and hikers turned out. First it was along Jensen road from the cars parked at the bottom of Circle Hill road. Then there was ample time to leisurely tackle the climb up Fort Hill Road to the saddle beside Fort Hill.
Rest and view point at crest of Fort Hill saddle.
Behind Fort Hill we passed by the familiar turn off to the Clarendon farm walk we had done many times before and continued across rolling farmland to reach the T junction where Barnes Road went both left and right. To the left was the short-cut across and down to Circle Hill Road; to the right was the longer way round. Five happily took the short-cut; the rest went on.
Looking on across to the high point of the tramp (Barnes Road)
Now looking across to ‘the short-cut’, taken by ‘the 5’, taken from top of Circle Hill Road
Where both groups linked up again, it was to find that the short-cutters had finished lunch and so set off on their own, the route back to the cars being easy to follow. The rest settled down then for their lunch.
Lunch spot near the corner of Barnes and Circle Hill Roads
After just a couple of small rises, the return trip to the cars was a leisurely down-hill drift. Everyone seemed happy with this new tramp and one expressed the view that it would be a good short-notice back-up. It requiring no permission and was moderately safe with light traffic. – Ian.
Very good Ian. I enjoyed this walk.Angela