It was a sunny Canberra day with a temperature forecast for no more than 25 degrees celsius, almost Autumn-like. There were some clouds about but nothing threatening. In the sun it was quite warm, but the shade provided cool walking. By 9.00am I had arrived at Craig's place in Gordon, a southern Canberra suburb and within 30 minutes we had parked the Rav4 in the outer car park of the Tidbinbilla Visitors Centre. We wasted little time in putting on our daypacks and heading across the car park to locate the starting point of the Birrigai Time Trail. (Apparently Birrigai is the aboriginal word for Laughter used by the Ngunnawal tribe)

The Birrigai Time Trail reveals reminders of Aboriginal and European occupation in this area. The trail is a very easy one to negotiate and well signposted. It's entire length is no more than a 3.2km circuit walk taking around 90 minutes to walk with some small uphill sections. We follow the brown posts through open grassy country for a short distance, putting up with swarms of locusts that fly up from the grassland as we approach. We soon come to an information board to the right of the track. This reveals a small level area that was used as a tennis court during the last century and it was popular with the settlers between the two world wars.

Just a little further up the track, in a copse of pine trees is the remnants of the old Gibraltar school. All that remains is part of the old fireplace, but an information board here reveals the school was used by pupils from the properties in the immediate area. It was worth taking a photo of Craig standing by the fireplace remains. (The original building was removed after it was closed in 1942 and relocated as the kindergarten at Canberra Girl's Grammar School)

The trail now becomes a track as it slightly ascends through the scrub to pass by some impressive granite outcrops where views can be had across the valley to the Tidbinbilla Ranges beyond. After a little more ascending we come to a mass of rock that reveals the highlight of this walk, the aboriginal rock shelter. Barricaded to prevent entry by vandals, the shelter is very narrow and obviously not heavily used, though in 1986 archaeologists discovered traces of bone, shell and charcoal and it was revealed that the shelter had human activity here 21,000 years ago.

The track now swings right and if you make the effort to ascend a short grassy knoll, you are rewarded with some excellent views of Gibraltar Peak and Mount Eliza. I missed the opportunity to take photographs of Gibraltar Peak from below last time I was here so I made sure I took a look before we returned to the main track. We follow this to where the track passes two fence lines and we stand in open grasslands dominated by mobs of eastern grey kangaroos. Lots and lots of them. The trail across the open countryside is marked by more signposts as we pass some plots that were used by land managers to study the effects of rabbits and kangaroos on the ecosystem.

A little further on we come to an information board that informs us that this area was where 19 year old Jack Maloney built a graziers hut in 1905. The hut is long gone, save for the remains of an old fireplace and for the keen eye, what remains of the hut's post-holes. We continue downhill, once again putting up with the locusts until we meet up with the track we had walked in on. It was only a few hundred metres back along the same trail before we reached the car park. A check of my watch revealed we had done the walk in just 75 minutes and we had again not seen a single snake. A walk that wasn't necessarily challenging in difficulty, but still providing lots of historical interest and enjoyable views.

Some information on this walk gleaned from "Exploring Tidbinbilla On Foot" by Graeme Barrow.