Mt Oxford - Ashley Saddle - 27th October 2018

Uncle Roddus Tramping Diary: Tramp No. 163

Mt Oxford/Ashley Saddle

27th October 2018

A real shock to the system, a full on tramping trip, after more than two years of inactivity due to health issues, laziness and spending all my spare money on records. The health issue was the relapse of the disc prolapse in my back a few years back which stopped me in my tracks from walking and tramping and caused me to develop a serious limp. Due to the damage to the nerve in my back, I have been quite restricted in my activities, although, managed to keep working all through this time. Recovery has been very slow and I many never recover back to my full mobility(I can walk fairly fast now, albeit with a limp, but I cannot run).

 Part of my various treatments to get me more mobile again is to actually get back out tramping in the hills. The only walk/tramp I had done since June 2016 was a walk with the wife to Ryde Falls over 12 months earlier. I was feeling confident that I could now actually try some real tramping and the plan was to attempt some of the local hills, of which I was pretty familiar, to gage how well I was able to cope. The weekend previous, now that spring was in full effect and daylight saving time had kicked in, the wife and I tackled Mt Richardson, a local hill that I had done a couple of times many years back and knew it was not too hard. That Trip went well and I was planning to try and get out in the local environs over the coming weeks. I had planned to tackle Mt Gray with a friend this weekend but one of my other friends mentioned there was an impromptu club tramp up Mt Oxford on the same day. I wasn't going to tackle Oxford so soon but it would be good to go on a club trip after soo long. As it was so close to home I took my own car just in cast I couldn't handle the pace of a club trip after 3 years.

 I met the group of 12 others at Coopers Creek just past 9am on a pleasant but not too warm day. I inquired to the leader as to the planned route and discovered that they planned to head up Oxford then loop back via Ashley Saddle and the ridge leading down to point  758 above the Scout Lodge. This was good as I had not actually taken this route before on the several other times I had climbed Mt Oxford.

 So we hit the trail by about 9:30am as I had a catchup with a club friend and was able to keep up with the pace of the group. The climb went well and I didn't fall too far behind, although I was last one to the top. Lunch was had in pleasant conditions with great views over the plains before we set off along the tops towards Oxford Hill. It was pretty easy going, mostly but the scrub and grass got higher and thicker as we started to drop towards Ashley Saddle. We stopped in the soft grass of Ashley Saddle for afternoon tea and to regroup as we had got quite strung out on the way down.

 After point 758 things started to get pretty overgrown but there was a track to follow so it wasn't too bad. The final stretch was along the four Wheel Drive Road, through a nice strand of mature pine trees before we hit the Scout lodge again and then back to the cars by about 4:30PM. After 16KM and about 1200m of uphill work I was pretty tired and sore but I handled it a lot better than I imagined and I haven't actually lost too much condition for so long out of the game. Still a long way off from being properly tramping fit again.