I arrived early at 12.25pm which gave me a chance to change into my hiking boots and take a good look at the Tharwa road bridge, a single lane bridge that spans the Murrumbidgee River. I also took the opportunity to read some of the history information boards that revealed much about the area and of nearby Mount Tennent.

It was a warm sunny day which made a huge difference to the miserably cold rainy days we had just experienced. Everyone else showed up at exactly 1.00pm. Familiar faces all around and apart from leaders Sean and Julie, I was familiar with all in attendance and they included Gerald Dodgson, David Large, Jacqui Rosier and Steve Carter.

We wasted little time, getting into our cars for the 50 minute drive to the track head. We followed the sealed Naas Road south until we crossed the Gudgenby River bridge and turned off onto an unsealed gravel road that would take us 2km to Yankee Hat car park. Here there is a public toilet and picnic tables, the latter host to a large brown snake catching the sun, according to a group who had just returned from a walk. We decided to give the picnic table a wide berth.

The car park features an impressive vista of mountains that includes Yankee Hat, Mt Gudgenby, Mt Burbidge, Mt Namadgi and Sentry Box Mountain. Sean pointing out that our first stop would be just below the tree line of Yankee Hat, the Aboriginal rock art site where we would enjoy afternoon tea. We set off almost immediately, following a faint but easily negotiable track across the open fields. We used wooden footbridges to cross the relatively dry Bogong Creek and Bogong Swamp, Sean was amazed at how dry the swamp had become during this year's very dry winter season.

We negotiated the track through light stands of trees to a track intersection where we dropped our rucksacks for a short stroll to the rock art site. It can be found in a rocky area with some wooden steps and a fence to deter vandals. We scrambled up onto a large rock where we had views of the cave paintings and enjoyed some of Julie's nut brownies whilst soaking up the early afternoon sunshine.

15 minutes later we returned to our rucksacks and followed the defined trail southwards. The trail is an old farm road and it takes us through granite out-cropped mostly grassland countryside dominated with eastern grey kangaroos and red necked swamp wallabies in the Bogong Creek area. The rocks made for great photographs. After crossing Bogong creek we turned right and followed another trail for some distance through eucalypt forest. We were contouring our way around Jack and Franks Hill, not far from their main hut we had visited last year and it made for quite pleasant walking.

Eventually the track came to a distinct sharp right bend. On some maps, the trail ends here. We now set off eastwards across country through the forest for about one kilometre until we stepped out onto the unsealed Old Boboyan Road, just 200 metres south of our required turn-off. We followed the road to a sharp left bend where a track revealed itself. This track takes us about 500 metres to Hospital Creek Hut, our camping area for tonight. It was exactly 5.00pm and we had walked approximately 12km today. The area in front of the hut is mostly swamp grass tufts, but there are cleared areas of low grass suitable for tent sites, even though they were dominated by rabbit and kangaroo poo.

Hospital Creek Hut was built by Frank, Jack and Les Oldfield in 1966 as a grazers rest hut. Made from corrugated iron and sawn bush timber. It has a semi dirt floor, reinforced with concrete, a fireplace, rare kerosene refrigerator and water tank. Sean is presently the hut's carer and has used this trip to do one of his regular field inspections. We picked our tent sites and wasted little time setting up. I had my Macpac Nautilus up in less than 10 minutes, but it took another 20 to sort out my bedding and gear.

After that we grabbed our food, stoves and folding seats and formed a circle in front of the hut to cook and eat our dinners. Once again a very varied range of meals and stoves were featured. I was content to have the simple instant mash, dry peas and packet salmon for dinner and mostly cooked on my Optimus gas stove which incorporated the new windshield I had just bought. All very simple. Sean brought out two white plastic picnic chairs from the hut for some of us to use. There were the usual smart comments about the availability of plastic moulded chairs in 1966 when this hut was built and the fact that the same chairs hardly looked to be part of something protected by the ACT heritage listing.

At 7.30pm Sean and a few others started collecting firewood and got the hutís fireplace lit. It was starting to get very cool outside and I opted not to join everyone in the hut for evening chit chat and port sipping, choosing to grab an early night thanks to a recent illness that had me bedridden for most of last week, it was almost 9.00pm by the time I got to sleep, but I ended up having a very restful night's kip.

I was awake by 6.30am next morning with strong sunlight shining through the tent's fabric, but not long after I exited my tent the clouds closed in and the sky looked quite miserable. It looked like we were in for some rain today. I joined everyone else for breakfast in front of the hut. Everyone had had a great night's sleep. I fired up my gas stove for coffee and enjoyed some cereal while the water boiled, just enough gas in the canister to boil one cup. Not bad really, that canister was first used in February last year. I did have a fresh canister in my pack, but decided I didn't need another coffee this morning.

At 8.00am everyone commenced packing up. I was amazed at how much condensation had gathered overnight on my tent's fly and under the base. I wasted little time in drying my tent with my tek towel ready for packing. I'd no sooner done that and the sun burst through the clouds. I had my tent down, dried and packed up and my rucksack loaded by 8.30am, not bad, but with the smaller one person Macpac Microlight tent I can better that time by almost half.

Sean called us over to the hut for the traditional group photograph. He really needs to get a small tripod so he can be included in the shots. At 8.35am we set off up the track back to Old Boboyan Road. Julie and Jacqui were keen to try the cross country route back and Sean considered this a good idea, for next year. The sun now shining brightly from a clear blue sky, though there were some clouds out to the west. We were expecting a much shorter walk today, we didn't realise just how short it would be. We set off down the Old Boboyan Road, heading north towards Yankee Hat Car Park. After about 5 minutes we arrived at a side trail heading off to the right, which was signposted Boboyan Firetrail 4.

It had been Sean's plan for us to follow this trail through some previously unseen countryside, arriving back at the car park after passing through some previously unseen areas via a very circuit-like route. Sean made the mistake of offering everyone the choice of following this trail, which, at a few kilometres longer, included negotiating a small hill - or taking the mostly downhill, much shorter and well known scenic route back to the cars. The latter won out and we continued northwards.

After descending the slope we passed by the side road on the left which would take us to Frank and Jack's Hut then slowly a gradual ascent brought us back to the Yankee Hat Car Park. We arrived back at the cars at 9.40am, just 65 minutes after leaving camp. Julie grabbed a spot at the now snake-less picnic table and dealt out the last of the chocolate nut brownies for morning tea before we jumped into our cars for the drive home.