Mount Lloyd via Judds Creek

Location Western Wellington
Route Judbury - Judds Creek - Mount Lloyd
There is an old track now somewhat overgrown, but easily able to be followed; some of it is within Wellington Park. It is a bit over 7 kilometres for the distance to Lloyd, but I only had time to walk 2.4 kilometres of it and whilst not presenting vistas it nevertheless had a forest of slim spaced trees with an understory of a good variety, including Waratah and lots of Richea dracophylla. There was a huge number of Crescent Honeyeaters and considerable Green Rosellas and numerous other birds. You could see the higher ridges to the west and after looking on Google Earth they looked to not be thickly vegetated and had apparent rocky areas visible. It would be good to reopen the track to Mount Lloyd, although I do not know for sure what the track beyond where I got to is like, but it visible in parts from the satellite view. It is not a boggy track and is not being overgrown with hard to manage bushes like Bauera.

Information from Denis Jeffery in January 2013 is that for the next couple of kms past the point where I got to, it is more overgrown and a bit difficult to distinguish in places, requiring some bush bashing. After this section the track meets a forestry plantation where it is easy walking on fire trails and the old Mount Lloyd track to the summit. The views from the top were reported as superb. The return walk on the track which took about 6.5 hours with minimal stops and was 16.9k return from White Timber Trail.
 
On option worth considering is a loop track using the old Mount Lloyd access route and then using the ridges mentioned above. The shorter way is about 8k plus 1.2 extra along road and parts of old road, totally 9.2k. If a more inner route is used for the last bit picking up part of the inward one then it is 10.3k for that leg; approx. 1k extra. There would be a section through thicker forest of at least 1k by either of the optional routes
It is apparent that the area involved marked as Wellington Park is only there because it is water catchment which makes it unsuitable for forestry operations.
Last Updated Friday, 21 January 2013
Route Grade Moderately Rough
Days 1
Photos and a map

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