Views all Canberrans will recognise #39

[martin butterfield <>]

Geoffrey

Compared to our last two visits to this area (one COG and one ANPS) the things missing are Brown Treecreeper (often lurking on rocks) and helicopter (from our experience an array of parked cars would prove an irresistible lure for them).

Martin

On Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Geoffrey Dabb <> wrote:

‘Glendale’ represents various things including the maintenance depot for Namadgi NP and the start of the Brandy Flat fire access trail, an interesting walk in the honeyeater season, say a month from now.  It is also a regularly-used orienteering spot, the picture here showing, more or less, the scene last Sunday, complete with turquoise portable facility.  If you look carefully you can see champion orienteer (Bushflyer) and keen birdwatcher Lachlan Dow trying not to be distracted by the birdlife.  Actually the birdlife shown does slightly exaggerate what was on offer last weekend, in fact apart from the ‘tchonk-tchonk’ of the ever-present WEH there was little about.

 

 ‘Glendale’ as a name encapsulates the anglo-celtic affinities of the early settlers, ‘glen’ coming from the Gaelic for a mountain valley and ‘dale’ from the Original Teutonic for a valley  -  unless dale was used in the Middle English sense of ‘a portion of land’.  I suppose the name was taken from some distant ‘Glendale’ by early graziers who were pushed to this rather remote corner by the pre-emptive squatter holdings in the flatter parts of the present ACT.  Or perhaps the squatters used it for seasonal grazing.  There are a few signs of earlier livestocking in the form of old fencing that can be found, surprisingly, in places now heavily timbered.