Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary - December 2015

By Friday night I'm normally happy that I've just made it through another week of work without any major drama, it's not a time I normally consider heading out for a walk. With daylight saving being in full swing however I started to think that the twilight hours of Friday might actually make a good time to go for a short stroll and take a few photos, at the very least it would act as an antidote to work and get me off the couch. With Sam up for the first 'Friday Frolic' we headed up the road a little to explore Ricketts Point Marine Sanctuary, arriving at the walk start at 8 pm this was a late even for me, someone who isn't keen on early starts.

Ricketts Point Tea House.

Setting off from the car park next to the Ricketts Point Teahouse we headed south and picked up a track running up through the coastal scrub between the beach and Beach Road. The sandy path feeling as remote as possible wedged into the sliver of bush, climbed very slightly around behind the Beaumaris SLSC. The highlight of the short stretch was watching a couple of Cockatoos playing in an old Banksia, they certainly weren't trying to be stealthy as their squawking could be easily heard over the constant drone of the traffic on Beach Road. Eventually the cockie's grew tired of us squawking back at them a flew off to find a quieter tree away from pesky walkers.

The trail heads through a very narrow belt of coastal scrub between the beach and Beach Road.

One  of the cockies that entertained us on the old Banksia.

He's had enough of the pesky walkers.

The walk notes now had us descending onto the coarse sand of Port Phillip Bay, we certainly got the short straw when it comes to sand quality in Melbourne compared to most other beaches around the country. All we had to do now was to head back towards the ute along the coast line, the sun dipping slowly into the bay as we walked. With it being mid tide we were able to wander out onto the rocks at Ricketts Point and check out the rock pools, the other notable above sea level feature of Ricketts Point was the amount of bird life in the area, with plenty of Swans, Pelicans and Sea Gulls in evidence.

The sun getting low behind Ricketts Point.

We watched the ships plying their trade up and down the bay for awhile.

Ricketts Point has been a Marine Sanctuary since 2002, created to help protect the marine bio-diversity of the bay. Judging by the amount of bird life, the under water environment must be fairly healthy. After watching the Spirit of Tasmania make its way down the bay, and with the sun disappearing below the horizon we walked the last few minutes back to the car park, our first Friday night frolic was over, it was certainly a better way to spend the twilight hour rather than sitting on the couch at home.

I still can't manage to get the horizon level.

It was almost dark when I took this photo.

The Dirt.

This was walk number 44 out of Melbourne's Best Bush, Bay & City Walks by Julie Monday, its another Woodslane book, their website is crap so no link. Remember a few walks ago I mentioned that the walk I was doing was so short I should of used a ruler instead of a GPS to measure it, well this one was even shorter, at 1.84 kilometres this has to be a record in slothfulness (if that's not a word then it should be). Even less impressive than the distance was the elevation gain, 10 metres, no I haven't left of a zero! This stroll also follows a very short section of Melbourne's Coastal Art Trail an 18 kilometre trail down the eastern side of Port Phillip Bay that commemorates the great the art and artists from Melbourne's famous Heidelberg School. So, if your looking for a very easy stroll maybe Ricketts Point is for you, our whole stroll was over in less than a hour and I'm reliably informed by Sam that the teahouse has awesome ice creams.