Cape Schanck

Walk overview

Length: 20km
Time: 7 hours
Grade: Medium
Ascent: 250m
Maximum height: 150m
Region: Mornington
Map: Meridien Publications 1:25,000 Mornington or Arthurs Seat

Starting from the carpark at Fingal Picnic Ground, we walked to Cape Schanck and along the boardwalk. From there we headed along the walking track to Bushrangers Bay, then further along the walking track which follows high above Main Creek to Boneo Road. The track has groves of banksias and affords good views of the countryside beyond the Cape. We crossed over Boneo Road and into Greens Bush, walking in a kilometre or so before stopping for lunch. After lunch, we retraced our steps back to Cape Schanck and then on to Fingal Beach, walking down almost a kilometre of steps to reach the beach. From there we backtracked and returned to the Fingal Picnic Ground.

Note: we didn't follow the walk route for Greens Bush and Cape Schanck outlined in Day Walks Victoria, but if you took two cars, it would be a reasonable alternative.

My comments

While the walking tracks aren't interesting in and of themselves, the views from the boardwalk at Cape Schanck and Bushrangers Bay are so beautiful that this is a walk I'd definitely repeat.

Bushrangers Bay is fabulous, the highlight being the rocky tidal pools around Elephant Rock. One pool looked like it was made for a queen - perfectly clear bright blue water, held in a pool lined with small smooth round rocks, and rimmed with mushroom pink plantlife. Just gorgeous.

Photos from this walk

For more, see: Cape Schanck photo slideshow

Lerderderg East

Walk overview

Length: 12.0km
Time: 4.5 hours (it tooks us 5 hours with a short lunch break)
Grade: Medium
Ascent: 300m
Maximum height: 620m
Region: Goldfields, Victoria
Map: Meridien Productions 1:35,000 Lerderderg and Werribee Gorges

"The Lerderderg State Park was created in 1987 and its central feature is the 300m deep gorge carved by the Lerderderg River. The river has cut into and exposed beds of ancient sandstone and slate. Beside the river are thickets of grevillea, hakea and wattle with large blue gums and manna gums arching over the stream. Higher up the slopes the forest is much drier with stringybark and ironbark gum trees towering over open forest floors."

"This walk passes through all the major habitats in the park as it follows the river and returns along a high ridge. Some of the history of the area is evident with aqueducts and diggins from the gold mining era and the old vehicle tracks left from when trees were cut for sawlogs."

Source: Day Walks Melbourne

My comments

We got off to a bad start with a flat battery that delayed our arrival at O'Brien's Crossing. We had two walk options that originally were dependent on the water level at the crossing, but given that I had to be home by 6pm, we had to opt for the shorter, 5 hour walk - Lerderderg East.

Just over half of the walk is along a track that runs alongside the Lerderderg River. It had rained the previous day and earlier that morning so the walking surface was quite slippery in parts - I managed to slip over three times! The track led us through lots of rocky sections, a short steep cliff climb and a very narrow, eroding ledge high above the river.

It took three hours to reach the end of the river section of the track, where we stopped for a short lunch break. The final part of the walk was along Cowan Track, an old vehicle track through fairly open forest. While not particularly interesting, at least it did give us a few short uphill sections.

My rating

Not bad, but I'm not all that keen on walking along vehicle tracks, so wouldn't repeat this walk in a hurry.

Photos from this walk

For more, see: Lerderderg East photo slideshow

Ironbark and Werribee Gorges

Walk overview

Length: 12.0km
Time: 4.5 hours
Grade: Medium to hard
Ascent: 405m
Maximum height: 360m
Region: Goldfields, Victoria
Map: Meridien Productions 1:20,000 Lerderderg and Werribee Gorges

"The dominant geological feature to the west of Melbourne is the Rowsley Fault. East of this fault lies the plains surrounding Port Phillip Bay while to the west is the uplifted plateau that extends to Ballarat. The Werribee River has cut deeply into this plateau creating a rugged steep-sided gorge."

"A series of walking tracks and foot pads visit most of the major features and this walk negotiates both Werribee Gorge and the subsidiary Ironbark Gorge."

Source: Day Walks Victoria

My comments

We almost always get lost on our walks, and today was no exception. We missed Ironbark Gorge either by taking the wrong track right at the start of the walk, or by missing a turn - we're still not sure where we went wrong. However, our navigation error turned out to be rather serendipitous (Chris P managed to get just the right word) as we found our way to the spectacular views offered by Falcons Lookout - aptly named as Chris J soon spotted a falcon.

Chris P had an older walking book that showed a path from the lookout down to the point where Ironbark Gorge meets the river, so we took that option to rejoin the original route. On a steep rocky climb down, Chris J managed to burst the zip of his backpack, sending his water bottle spiraling down. As luck would have it, Chris P managed to spot it at the bottom and hop across some rocks to retrieve it.

Crossing the river wasn't straightforward. Because we weren't sure we'd reached the river at the right point to cross (it certainly wasn't crossable here), we took a vague track around the edge of a cliff face to see if we could find a suitable crossing. Chris P scarpered off across a fallen log that provided a bridge over the river and promptly disappeared. In the meantime, Chris J and I found ourselves in the middle of a swarm of bees, one of which managed to get tangled in my hair, stinging me on the scalp in the process! Chris P soon returned saying he'd been able to cross the river and find the track on the other side. So over the river on the log we went. My knees were knocking by the time I was back on terra firma. Although the log was suspended only a metre or so above the water, the thought of falling into a freezing cold rocky-bottomed river carrying pack full of gear and camera didn't appeal.

We soon found Needles Beach, a sandy oasis with a fantastic rocky gorge cliff-face as a backdrop and then continued on around the river, scrambling over rocks and negotiating a few rocky ledges--one even had a line bolted into the rockface to hang on to--to reach Lions Head Beach.

We then walked alongside an old aqueduct for a couple of kilometres, marvelling at the effort it must have taken to build it in such difficult terrain, before heading up to the quarry picnic area where we stopped for a short while for lunch.

The next part of the walk took us along the top of the gorge to the Eastern Lookout, where we could see back over the east to the city--on the horizon in the far distance--and then Picnic Point where we had a fabulous view of the gorge and winding river and the walking route we'd taken during the morning. It was quite impressive!

After a long, rocky descent we made our way back to Needles Beach, running into some stinging nettles along the way. A discussion on the beach saw the guys keen to cross back over the river and walk back via Ironbark Gorge, while I was more inclined to take the route up over the Western Bluff. After a consensus decision to do the gorge, my inability to tackle the log crossing had Chris P hunting around for other crossing options before we gave up and decided to go over the Bluff. We headed back around past Needles Beach, back over the rocks to a point on the river where we were able to cross over rocks to reach the vaguely defined track leading up to Western Bluff.

It was a tough way to end the walk. Mostly uphill, and a good deal of it on a very thin, rocky ridge. But we all felt a real sense of achievement when arriving back at the cars.

I haven't felt this tired after a walk in a long while. It took us 6.5 hours rather than the 4.5 quoted. While taking the wrong route at the start might account for 15-20 minutes extra time, and our attempts to cross the river to take the Ironbark Gorge route back might have cost a similar amount of time, we still have over an hour of extra time to account for. We certainly weren't dawdling or stopping for long breaks. I also thought there was more than 405m of climbing involved. But maybe it was all the adrenaline caused by my fear of heights, maybe a fear of logs or log-bridges?

My rating

Excellent. This is a really beautiful walk through spectacular scenery--the rock faces of the gorge are wonderful--and many changes of vegetation. A little hairy crossing the river, but definitely a walk to do again (when I've forgotten about that log).

Photos from this walk

For more, see: Werribee Gorge photo slideshow

Ferntree Gully Forest - Revisited!

Walk overview

Length: 11.4km circuit
Time: 4 hours
Grade: Medium
Ascent: 700m
Maximum height: 500m
Region: Dandenong Ranges National Park
Map: Melway maps 65, 74

"The forest near Ferntree Gully has always been a popular destination for a brief escape from the nearby city. First reservedin 1882, it became a national park in 1927 and in 1987 was merged with nearby Sherbrooke and Doongalla Forests into the Dandenong Ranges National Park. A network of walking tracks and closed fire management tracks penetrate the forest providing pleasant year round walking."

Source: Day Walks Victoria

My comments

Today we repeated this walk we'd done about three months ago, and which was the first in our series of training walks for Nepal.

Chris seemed very reluctant to repeat the walk. I soon confirmed it was because he thinking it was still going to be pretty tough. But we aced it this time! The "1000 steps" section--a set of 1000 slippery, uneven stone steps--was much easier than before: no huffing and puffing or needing to stop every few steps. And I even managed the steep Chandler's Hill without any grumbling!

We finished the walk in about 3 hours and 20 minutes (more than an hour faster than the last time), despite stopping to take lots of photos. Our timing was good too - the rain started just as we sat down at the picnic ground near the carpark to eat our lunch.

My rating

Good. A great training walk and a good way to judge your fitness.

Photos from this walk

For more see: Ferntree Gully Forest photo slideshow