Distance: 10.3km
Time: 1 hour approx
Grade: Medium
Surface Type: 25% bitumen, 55% gravel maintenance tracks, 20% unformed paths
Map reference: Canberra Cycleways Map
Route Map
Features: A ride along mostly well maintained gravel tracks through open eucalypt
woodland, with glimpsed views. Some bicycle path riding along the lake shore. A few short
steep climbs.
Some photos of the ride
Route Description:
The ride starts at a small gravel car park located 50 m from the end of Frith Road, which is located on the eastern side of Black Mountain between the reserve and the CSIRO campus. The approach by car is along Frith Road, which turns off Barry Drive at an underpass. Cyclists can reach the start from the bike path on Clunies Ross Street, by riding up the main road through the centre of the CSIRO campus. The campus is closed on weekends by boomgates at each entrance, but it is easy to cycle around the gates and ride through the deserted campus ( see map).
The ride starts at a gate leading to the Canberra Nature Park Black M ountain Reserve, marked by a wooden sign. Lift your bike over the gate and take the track leading up hill off to the right from the sign, keeping the huge electricity transformer station on the right. After a short time the path descends to a corner where a large earth channel heads off to the right around the hillside (0.2km). This is a cutoff drain, dug to catch floodwater which runs off the mountain side during periods of heavy storm. Keep to the left of the cutoff drain and follow the track up a steep hill out into an open bushy hillside. From here there are views towards the City centre, and across Lake Burley Griffin to the Parliament House. In spring this part of Black Mountain is covered with blue, yellow, white and red native flowers. In early summer clumps of yellow everlasting daisies (helichrysum sp) can be seen.
The track heads north following a high voltage electricity line, where the rider will encounter some of the steepest and roughest sections of the ride. But once the highest point is reached (1.0km) , the track gently descends as it swings 90 degrees to face west, still following the power line.
With Belconnen Way about 50 m away to the right, the track rapidly deteriorates into an unformed dirt path, which meanders through open grassland and low bushes, until it starts to rise towards a junction with a well formed track (2.4km).
Take a left turn onto the track followed after 50m by a sharp left onto a smooth narrow track which heads east into the eucalypt woodland. The track gently climbs as it turns around to the south, crossing an intersecting track (the start of the Aranda Loop) at 3.2km. Keep heading straight along the track, which now climbs more steeply until it joins a well formed track coming in from the left at a steep point. Keep powering up the hill and follow the track around to the right , ignoring a very steep rough track which heads off up the hill to the left (3.7km).
The track now curves around to the right, over a rise and steeply around to the left, passing a footpath (with a cycles prohibited sign) off to the right at about 3.9km. Keep following the main well formed gravel track which meanders through the woodland, with a number of challenging dips and climbs, until a fork at 5.1km. Taking the left fork leads the rider over a deep ravine and uphill until views of the distant Brindabella Mtns, Greenhills pine plantation and the bald Mt Painter can be glimpsed through the trees. The track passes a path off to the left signed the “Summit Trail” (5.3km), and our track takes on the name “Woodland Trail”.
Following the Woodland Trail the track deteriorates as it plunges steeply downhill, swinging sharply to the right at 6.1km. (Do not be tempted to ride straight ahead at this point as the path, after crossing a small creek, turns sharply and very steeply uphill towards the summit of Black Mountain). Following the Woodland Trail downhill brings the rider through a grove of wattle bushes in sight of a cul de sac (Rani Road). Bear left at this point away from the Woodland Trail and skirt around the edge of the cul de sac, keeping the fence on the right until a skinny path leads steeply down to join the bitumen bike path as it enters a series of three underpasses under Parkes Way.
Emerging from the second underpass the bike path crosses the less busy Lady Denman Drive to join a bike path squeezed between the road and Lake Burley Griffin (6.6km).
A short ride along the bike path to the right would take the cyclist to the National Museum of Australia (0.8km) exhibition annexe (soon to be relocated to its permanent site on Acton Peninsula), the National Aquarium and Wildlife Sanctuary (3.2km), Scrivener Dam.( 4.0km) and the Governor-General’s Residence (5.7km) Our route heads left, keeping the towering bulk of Black Mt on our left, and the views across the lake towards the Governor-General’s Residence on the far distant lake shore. Continuing east the bike path leaves a small grassy bank area, where schools and rowing clubs compete during most summer Saturdays, into a narrow squeeze between the lake and the road high above. A short distance across the lake lies Weston Park, with its barbeques, train rides and the best swimming beaches on the lake, and the historic Yarralumla Nursery.
A short rise out of the squeeze takes the rider across Garryowen Drive (7.9km) leading off to the popular barbecues, swings and beaches of Black Mountain Peninsula. Continuing past the Peninsula the path follows the willow fringed lake shore until a fork is reached. Take the left fork back under Parkes Way and continue on the bike path along the right side of Clunies Ross Street.
The extremely energetic (some would say foolhardy), will not resist the challenge of a ride up Black Mountain Drive, which heads off to the left up to the top of Black Mountain and one of the best known landmarks in Canberra, the Telstra Tower. We resist the temptation and continue along the bike path alongside Clunies Ross Street, with the extensive campus of the Australian National University on the right. Cross the road about 50m beyond the entrance to the National Botanic Gardens , at a road sign reading ‘Botanic Gardens’. Riding straight ahead up the concrete path will lead into the Gardens, where an inviting cafe/restaurant serves tasty snacks and meals as well as icecreams and milkshakes. Turning right instead onto a concrete footpath leads after a few metres to a left turn up the hillside along a faint grassy track to a locked gate in the National Botanic Gardens boundary fence. Follow the boundary fence to the right for about one km until the path reemerges onto Frith Road, about 150m downhill from the start (10.3km).
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