First trip out – Flea Creek, Brindabella Ranges

Note: this was written in 2017, so the condition of the track has changed since then. Gentle Annie and Webbs Ridge Trail are now much easier to traverse (Feb 2021), though its still advisable to have a 4wd with decent clearance.

Our first trip out was a great success and will be very memorable for both of us for a long time.

Flea Creek has always been one of those places that we drive past and say “Hey, we should stay there one night”. It’s accessible down Gentle Annie Track off Brindabella Road, on your way through to Tumut from Canberra. The track itself is 4wd only; while it’s well maintained for the most part, there are a lot of hills and dips to go through where high clearance, low range and all-wheel drive would help enormously. Most stock 4wds would be able to do the track in the dry no worries, even with limited offroad experience. If you worry about scraping the front of your car when you go up gutters or down carpark ramps, this is not the track for you.

Pictures of steep slopes never show what you actually see, but this is typical of Gentle Annie Track.

The van performed ridiculously well, coasting down to the camp in 1st Low with no pedal input, then driving out up the same track in low range 1st and 2nd. Clearance was not an issue, but I did air the tyres down a little for stability and comfort over the rocky ground. Watch out for dirt bikes and Patrol owners going too fast through blind corners on all roads in Namadgi/Uriarria, as they seem to be everywhere.

Once you get down to Flea Creek, there’s two sections. The first is a limited little campground with only 4 or 5 real camping areas. We found the last one right on a little creek and promptly set up there. The other section is the day trip swimming section a short walk from the campsites. The main area is in the photo below, with my flabby white body sitting all alone in the middle of the creek.

Much less crowded than the Cotter Reserve, this is a very nice place to swim. Further upstream there’s more rocks, rapids and hidden pools, though it’s all pretty safe for kids. All up, I preferred it to Casuarina Sands except for the longer drive. Back at the campsite, we set up the van for the first time. Couple of things to comment on:

The van and our surrounding camp ‘site’ were very small. With tent camping you tend to spread over a larger area, but that didn’t seem to happen with everything built into the van.
Having a fridge while camping is the most decadent thing in the world. Not having soggy egg containers or melted ice in your bacon of a morning was fantastic. Less good was the lack of ice for drinks, but I can live with that.
The home made mosquito nets with magnets worked much better than they had any right to considering they took 15 minutes to make.
Packing up the van is the simplest thing in the world. Not having to struggle with a tent while hungover is fantastic. There’s still a bit of packing up to do, but we’ll get better at it after a few trips out.
You can try get changed in the van, but it’s just easier to go round the back with the door open and get changed like that. We do have a pop up ensuite tent we could use for getting changed, but in remote locations like this it didn’t seem very necessary.

Anyway, this was our camp:

You remember how I said there wasn’t many campsites actually at Flea Creek? Well, we took the last one, but we invited a group of three young Canberra folk to set up close to us. They were friendly enough, though we did feel like the more experienced campers. They had to borrow a frypan, garbage bag, paper towels and knife and I’m pretty sure we got the better sleep.

Talking about sleeping, the platform worked out very well. The mattress is very comfortable, it’s easy to get in and out of the van from the rear and the roof isn’t that close to you so you feel like you’re sleeping in a coffin. We had all four doors/windows open and covered with netting, and it actually got cold towards the end of the night. We figured it would be quite stuffy, but you’re so high up that you do get cross flow wind cooling everything down. Thicker blankets are on the list of things to purchase.

So all in all, a highly recommended camp site or just day trip into the Brindabellas.