I have a bit of a backlog of posts about recent walks which I am working through. Last week I found myself in Ainslie for an appointment which ended at lunch time, so I figured I’d go for a walk. There is a series of geocaches near Campbell Park West (a set of office buildings for non-Canberrans), so off I went.
The cache series was nice, but the most exciting part of the walking in this area was all the unexploded ordinance (UXO) warnings. I’m sure the area is totally safe, as many people walk through it each day, but it certainly adds an air of adventure to the walk.
You can find a list of the UXO reports for the ACT on the Department of Defence website, I must say that its not very impressive that the Department has contaminated so many sites around Australia without remediating them — there are heaps in New South Wales for example. The ACT gets off relatively lightly with only three contaminated sites.
Its also interesting to note that a suburb very close to me was used as a bombing practise range in World War Two. I’m not aware of anyone in my circle who knew that.
Anyway. Nice terrain, nice caches, lots of fun. I’d say this would be a good walk for cubs, but I am sure the risk management paperwork for a walk in a UXO are is complicated.