Mt Martha Park - November 2015

The way my walks are going lately I'll soon be writing up a post about walking around the block, I just don't seem to be able to get to far from home to do a big walk in Victoria. Once again the allure of coffee and the papers did me in again, so by the time I actually though about going for a stroll it was 3pm on Sunday afternoon, yes I'd more or less lost a whole weekend. So with a very small window I decided to make the short trip to Mount Martha Park and go for a stroll there.  Luckily the walk that I decided on was so short I could of measured it with a ruler rather than a GPS, so the late hour wasn't really a problem.

The beautiful picnic area at Mount Martha Park.

After making good use of the picnic tables near the car park to put on my boots, I headed through the beautiful picnic area to the information board to try and work out which route that I would take. If that sounds a little vague its because it was, my notes didn't really nominate any particular route basically telling me to head into the scrub and wander around for a bit, hopefully covering at least a couple of kilometres in the process.

Plenty of nice easy tracks in this little park.

There is enough sign posting in the park that you couldn't really get lost.

Wandering through the gates that led from the picnic area to the native bush I immediately felt more at home. There's something about the Aussie bush that connects with me and as soon as I'm surrounded by the scrappy eucalyptus and wattles I feel right at home. Today was no different and I felt that familiar euphoric feeling I get as soon as I was enveloped by the scrub. The walking through the park is all on excellent tracks, I basically kept to the left at all the major track junctions until I popped out at the lookout tower.

The lookout tower in Mount Martha Park, the only view of note on the walk.

The lookout tower provided the only extensive views of the walk, the views down toward Arthurs Seat being the pick, the view west over the bay suffering a little due to the late afternoon sun. After taking in the view for a little while I figured that I'd better start heading back to the ute, basically I made a big loop around the summit area, clear as mud hey! What this actually means is that I headed a little way back the way I'd come, before picking up a rack that took me north in the direction of Park Road, a dirt road that runs through the park.

Arthurs Seat from Mount Martha.

It looks like this section of rail was being used by mountain bikers as well.

Once I noticed Park Road through the trees I picked up another track more or less paralleling the road and started back towards the car park. This section of the walk passed through some re-planted trees as well as a few sections where the vegetation is regenerating after a fire, the blackened limbs standing out against the cobalt blue sky. In what was a ridiculously short time I arrived back at the large picnic area and the walk was officially over. I was home before 6 pm, not too bad an effort I thought, a drive to the trail head, a bush walk, and then the drive home all under three hours, although the walk was probably the equivalent of me walking around my clothes line!

The blue sky allowed me to give the polariser a bit of a work out.

The Dirt.

I walked 3.3 kilometres on this stroll and climbed 54 metres. The walk is vaguely written up in Walks of the Mornington Peninsula by Ken Martin, its walk number 39 in the book. The walk is probably a good one for people with small children as the tracks good enough that they could be walked with a pram, the picnic area at the start would also make a great place for lunch. OK hold on tight, I've decided that I need to harden up the blog a little so I've got big plans for the upcoming weekend, maybe a bit of off track action, maybe a desert walk, maybe a mountain, but then again I may just end up drinking coffee and reading the papers, we will know soon enough.

It looks like much of the park has been burn't in the previous few years.

Heading back to the ute, this track runs parallel to Park Road.