Greens Bush & Highfield 15th March 2014

With predicted storms in the afternoon I decided to do a walk close to home this week. The Mornington Peninsula National Park gives me plenty of options for walking, swimming and riding, and being only thirty minutes from home is a bonus. I decided to revisit a walk out of Glen Tempest's book, the 2nd edition of Daywalks Around Melbourne, walk # 93 Greens Bush & Highfield. With my usual tardy start I wasn't at the track head at Highfield until 3pm, with storms predicted for 5 pm I knew I'd be cutting it fine.

Leaving the car at the Highfield car park.

Parking my car under the Casurina's at the entrance to Highfield, I was soon walking down Boneo Road to meet up with the Two Bays Track, at this stage of the day the temperature was a balmy mid twenties with a nice breeze, however the looming black clouds coming in from the west made me think that maybe I'd be getting wet today.

Walking down Boneo Road.

Once on the Two Bays Track I followed it up Main Creek, the track goes from Bushrangers Bay to Port Phillip Bay, hence the Two Bays, its a twenty plus kilometre walk, but today I was only doing a small section. The track up main creek is benched into the hillside, with views south over open paddocks southwards towards Flinders, its a great place to see Kangaroo's and it makes for very pleasant walking.

I think things may get a bit damp.

From the openings on the track I could see the black clouds building up, there was no way I was going to make it back without a drenching, no real drama except I hadn't thrown in my water proof camera, and the DSLR would be going into a dry bag at the first sign of precipitation.

Keep an eye out for Kangaroos.

On reaching The Long Point Firebreak I decided to head down to the old picnic and camping area. The area has been closed for years and I was wondering why. Descending to the old camping area at the junction of Main Creek and Lightwood Creek it wasn't really obvious to me why camping was now banned, there was a sign warning of falling branches, so maybe its another liability issue, there is also a problem with die-back in the park, but the whole walk along Main Creek had been in a die-back area so I doubt that was the issue.

The Two Bays Walking Track.

Retracing my steps back up to the Two Bays Track I could see that there wouldn't be to many more photo's for this walk, it was about to piss down. I followed the Two Bays Track for just over another kilometre before turning left and climbing up a firebreak to the west. About halfway up the hill the rain hit, time to stop and put everything into the dry bag.

Main Creek, the track sidles the side of the hill above.

Two Bays track is well benched.

Looking across the valley towards Flinders.

The thunder and lightening now accompanied me for the rest of the walk, it wasn't cold so it was really a nice walk with the bush wet and glistening in the afternoon light. The rain also seems to enhance the smell from the Eucalypt's, which was a fair pay off for being soaking wet.

Ferns crowding the track as it follows Lightwood Creek.

Passing by the old Highfield Homestead I was soon back at the car, grabbing a towel from the car I dried myself off a bit, turning on the radio I hear that they have stopped an AFL game in Sydney due to lightning, something I've never heard of before, so obviously I wasn't the only one getting wet. The good news is that my Osprey, Mutant 38 pack appears relatively water resistant, this being the first time I've used it in the rain.

Climbing the firebreak, its about to bucket down.

The photographer isn't skilled enough to convey how black these clouds were. This was the last photo I took.

The Dirt
According to my GPS this walk was 9.37 kilometres, and the total climbing for the walk was 214 metres (I'm starting to wonder how accurate my GPS is with the total ascent figure, I've had a couple that seem a bit on the romantic side!).  As I said earlier the walk notes were from Daywalks Around Melbourne by Glen Tempest  http://osp.com.au/   the map I used was the Mornington & Arthurs Seat 1:25000 Meridian Map.
This is an easy walk on good tracks with the bonus of the chance to see plenty of Kangaroos.