I think it's fair to say that I love the Namadgi National Park. It's right on Canberra's doorstep, but is often so deserted that you can feel like you are hundreds of kilometers away from the nearest civilisation. The kids and I (plus one of their mates) took a day trip out to Nursery Swamp in the Orroral Valley.
It was a beautiful walk and although the first couple of kilometers were uphill we managed the 8.5km return trip pretty easily. The walk ends up at Nursery Swamp - a fen - that stores water high up in the mountain. The fen is so named because early European settlers used to calf and lamb their stock there, taking advantage of the abundant water and wild grasses. For thousands of years before Europeans arrived it was also a place where aboriginal people lived and their existence can still be found by some rock art (which unfortunately we couldn't locate). I could totally appreciate why someone would make this place their home.
The diversity of landscape we walked through was amazing, from long board-walks to pretty copses and huge mountain boulders. Because there had been rain a couple of days before our walk a lot of things were green - we trod carefully at some spots because the chance of snakes increases in sunny but damp weather. When the walk concludes (well ok, I guess when you're half way) the view when you reach the swamp is stunning.
We only saw three other people on our walk. It's such a shame that more people don't recognise the sheer beauty of these places, but then I guess if they did it may detract from the beauty itself! 10/10
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| The marsh |
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