canberra – Made by Mikal

Trail run: the base of Urambi Hill

This one has been on my list for a little while — a nice 10km loop around the bottom of Urambi Hill. I did it as an out and back, although there is a loop option if you cross the bridge that was my turn around point. For the loop option cross the bridge, run a couple of hundred meters to the left and then cross the river again at the ford. Expect to get your feet wet if you choose that option!

Not particularly shady, but nice terrain. There is more vertical ascent than I expected, but it wasn’t crazy. I haven’t posted pictures of this run because it was super foggy when I did it so the pictures are just of white mist.

Trigs map

A while ago I had a map of all the trig points in the ACT and links to the posts I’d written during my visits. That had atrophied over time. I’ve just spent some time fixing it up again, and its now at https://www.madebymikal.com/trigs_map.html — I hope its useful to someone else.

Trail run: Tuggeranong Stone Wall loop

The Tuggeranong Stone wall is a 140 year old boundary between to former stations. Its also a nice downhill start to a trail run. This loop involves starting at the Hyperdome, following the wall down, and the continuing along to Pine Island before returning. Partially shaded, and with facilities at the Hyperdome and Pine Island. 6km, and 68m vertically.

Trail run: Lake Tuggeranong to Kambah Pool (return)

This wasn’t the run I’d planned for this day, but here we are. This runs along the Centenary Trail between Kambah Pool and Lake Tuggeranong. Partially shaded, but also on the quite side of the ridge line where you can’t tell that you’re near the city. Don’t take the tempting river ford, there is a bridge a little further downstream! 14.11km and 296 vertical ascent.

Be careful of mountain bikers on this popular piece of single track. You’re allowed to run here, but some cyclists don’t leave much time to notice other track users.

Trail run: Barnes and ridgeline

A first attempt at running to Barnes and Brett trigs, this didn’t work out quite as well as I’d expected (I ran out of time before I’d hit Brett trig). The area wasn’t as steep as I’d expected, being mostly rolling grazing land with fire trails. Lots of gates and now facilities, but stunning views of southern Canberra from the ridgeline. 11.11km and 421m of vertical ascent.

Trail run: Pine Island South to Point Hut with a Hill

This one is probably a little bit less useful to others, as the loop includes a bit more of the suburb than is normal. That said, you could turn this into a suburb avoiding loop quite easily. A nice 11.88km run with a hill climb at the end. A total ascent of 119 metres. There isn’t much shade along the run, but there is some in patches. There are bathrooms at Point Hut and Pine Island.

Be careful of mountain bikers on this popular piece of single track. You’re allowed to run here, but some cyclists don’t leave much time to notice other track users.

Trail running guide: Tuggeranong

I’ve been running on trails more recently (I’m super bored with roads and bike paths), but running on trails makes load management harder — often I’m looking for a run of approximately XX length with no more than YY vertical ascent. So I was thinking, maybe I should just write the runs that I do down so that over time I create a menu of options for when I need them.

This page documents my Tuggeranong runs.

Name	Distance (km)	Vertical Ascent (m)	Notes	Posts
Cooleman Ridge	9.78	264	Cooleman and Arawang Trigs. Not a lot of shade and no facilities.	25 April 2019
Pine Island South to Point Hut with a Hill	11.88	119	A nice Point Hut and Pine Island loop with a hill climb at the end. Toilets at Point Hut and Pine Island. Not a lot of shade. Beware of mountain bikes!	21 February 2019
Barnes and ridgeline	11.11	421	Not a lot of shade and no facilities, but stunning views of southern Canberra.	2 May 2019
Lake Tuggeranong to Kambah Pool (return)	14.11	296	Partial shade and great views, but beware the mountain bikes!	11 May 2019
Tuggeranong Stone Wall loop	6	68	Partial shade and facilities at the Hyperdome and Pine Island.	27 April 2019
The base of Urambi Hill	10.21	243	Not much shade, more vertical ascent than it looks, but very pleasant.	9 June 2019

Trail run: Cooleman Ridge

This run includes Cooleman and Arawang trig points. Not a lot of shade, but a pleasant run. 9.86km and 264m of vertical ascent.

YA-90

Ok, so now that I’ve rediscovered walking to trigs while pursuing my hobby of trying to kill Mr Carden, I am enthused to do some more urban walking.

The only urban trig I haven’t been to is YA-90 on Isaacs Ridge. There are also three geocaches along the way I’d like to collect to. I propose we stage a walk from Isaacs as there’s plenty of parking and do this one some evening when its cooler.

Total distance should be about 4km return, with about 150 meters of vertical ascent. It should take about an hour.

We did this walk on a warm afternoon on new year’s day. The walk is pleasant, with plenty of shade for most of the way. In the end we only collected two of the geocaches, as following the ridge line to the third was considered an exercise for another day. A very pleasant walk. A 4.2km walk with 169 meters of ascent.

A year of being more active

A little over a year ago I helped host a panel session at the Paris OpenStack summit. The panel was three telco people talking about NFV, but that’s not the bit I really remember. The bit that really stuck with me was how fat I looked in photos from the event. An example:

I weighed just over 110 kilos (240 lbs). I decided something had to change — I have a new daughter, and I want to be around to see her well into her life. So, I joined a gym and started bush walking. My first walk was documented here as a walk up Tuggeranong hill. That rapidly became an obsession with climbing hills to survey markers, which then started to include finding geocaches.

I can’t give you a full list of the tangents that one photo from Paris has caused, because the list isn’t complete yet and may never be. I now run, swim, ride my bike, and generally sweat on things. Its all fun and has had the unexpected side effect that its helped me cope with work stress much more than I expected.

I’ve lost about 15 kilos (30 lbs) so far. Weight loss isn’t really the main goal now, but its something I continue to track.

I thought it would be interesting to list all the places I’ve walked in Canberra this year, but a simple bullet point list is too long. So instead, here’s an interactive map.

There are a lot more walks I want to do around here. Its just a case of finding the time.