The Walk: An almost straight-line walk along the shared walkway/cycleway alongside Reconciliation Drive.
Distance: 2 km
Time: 30 minutes

This new walk section enables two (or possibly three) circular walks to be planned which are shorter then the full Circular Walk. Please refer to the map on the Circular Walk page where this new walk section is shown in pale blue. Although the walk section is monotonous underfoot, it is the only section of any walk which provides views of the "inside" of Prospect Hill, with the near-vertical cliff faces created by quarrying over the last hundred years or so. Until this year, these views have only been seen by quarry workers.

This Link Walk start at the point on the "Short Cut" where the footpath crosses Reconciliation Drive about 250 metres south of the Butu Wargun roundabout. Start walking southwards on the walway/cycleway on the left of Reconciliation Road.

As you walk you will realise that you arer entering the vast quarried area that is the middle of Prospect Hill.

After about fifteen minutes you swill reach the junction with Basalt Road. Here you are nearly at the centre of Prospect Hill and can appreciate that it is an oval shaped ridge, open at the south end behind you. Look straight down Basalt Road and then upwards and you will see One-Tree Hill with its huge Moreton Bay Fig Tree. You can see that this hill is a promontory sticking out from, and higher than, the main ridge. It wasn't always like that. The crest of the ridge has actually been quarried away so that what we see as the crest today is further away from us, and lower, than the original crest. The fig tree was originally on the crest of the hill but is now left on an isolated bluff sticking out towards us.

The fig tree marks the site of the original house named Grey Stanes, which was built and owned by Nelson Lawson, third son of William Lawson the explorer and settler of Veteran Hall. From our viewpoint here, Grey Stanes was actually in front of the tree, a location which is now clearly in mid-air some 30 metres above the quarry floor! The orginal highest point of Prospect Hill was a short distance to the right of the house. Its location is thus also in mid-air above the quarry floor. It was 131 metres above sea level and several metres above the present ridge height.

The ridge dips gently to the left of One Tree Hill before rising to the present highest summit of Prospect Hill which I have called Greystanes Hill, visible [above the Cadbury-Schweppes building? - this needs checking]. The furthest summit, Prospect Lookout, is not visible now as our viewpoint is too low.

Continue along Reconciliation Road round a gentle right bend to the junction with Basalt Road which you will reach in about another five minutes. After about five to ten minutes, as you pass a junction to a road only a few metres long on the right, you are now quite close to the massive quarried cliffs of the inside of Prospect Hill. The right wall looks more or less level all the way along until a slight rise to the summit of Water Tower Hill with its Two Water Towers. Close by on the left, a slight rise in the left-hand or western wall is what I have called the South Summit.

Continuing along Reconciliation Road you will soon find you are walking through the Gap, a man-made break in the Southern ridge of Prospect Hill. It is difficult to imagine that the hills on your left and right were once joined by a more or less level ridge which has been completely removed by quarrying. On the left is the summit I have called the South Summit and on the right a scrubby area above high steep cliffs hides Reservoir Summit. After five minutes or so the road dips down more steeply and you arrive at a pedestrian crossing controlled by traffic lights. The is where the Canal reserve walkway/cycleway crosses Reconciliation Road and is the end of this Link Walk. You can join the western section of our main Circular Walk, by turning either right to cross Reconciliation Road to make for Andrew Campbell Reserve, or left up the hill to Hyland Road. In either case start the page at the heading "Continuation."