Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Mt Lofty Circuit Walk, Warrandyte State Park




I went out to the Warrandyte State Park, 20 km east of the Melbourne CBD, on October 6, 2008.

I did an interesting 3 km circuit walk to Mt Lofty, starting at the Canoe Launching Ramp at the car park at the end of Reserve Rd.

The route followed the Yarra River for a short distance, then went steeply uphill on Wayne Rd.

This followed the ridgeline, on the western end of Mt Lofty, with grand views of the Park, and across to the Dandenong Ranges and Yarra Ranges. Along the ridgeline there is a water-point marker sign next to a rough jeep track. This is followed steeply down hill to a nice picnic area adjacent to the Yarra.

The Yarra at this point flows over rocks and rapids, and there is a small beach which gives excellent views.

The main low level Mt Lofty Track is then followed back to the car park.

This route provides an appreciation of the Mt Lofty Section of the Park, and even though it is steep in places, the views from the top are worth the effort!

The various "roads" in this section of the Park are not named on maps - they are shown on Google Earth, and date back to the period when the region was farmland. Their names derive from the landowners of the era. A few relics survive, mainly the remains of fences and gate-posts.

The Mt Lofty Section was completely stripped of timber during the goldrush era of the late 1800s, then became open farmland prior to its incorporation into the Park in 1997.

See all of the
Photos of this walk

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