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| The story of today's walk really. |
Hastings, this industrial town on the shores of Port Phillip Bays lesser known brother Western Port Bay, doesn't really get a lot of good press. If it does make the media it's normally because of another big industry is down sizing or closing for good, so it's not the first place most people think of when it comes to a walk. I'm as guilty as most others, normally by-passing the town on my way further down the Mornington Peninsula to more scenically abundant locations. Now in saying all that, there is a walk near Hastings that I've visited repeatedly over the years, yes the walk from Jacks Beach Reserve to Hastings is a bit of a favourite when I have some time to spare.
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| Jacks Beach Reserve on another frigid Victorian winters day. |
Glancing to the heavens as I climbed out of the ute at the Jacks Beach Reserve the grey skies had me thinking that I might be getting a bit damp on this stroll, something that hasn't happened to often this winter. Before starting my walk I took the short side trip out to Jacks Beach to check out the historic tanning pit that the Jack family used to tan their cotton fishing nets back in the early 1900's. Now beach might be stretching it a bit, it's really a low rocky point surrounded by mangroves, but not only does it have the tanning pit but it also has it's own Oberon class submarine, now that's something you don't see on every bushwalk! The HMAS Otama was decommission in the late 2000's and now lives moored just off Jacks Beach in Western Port Bay, there has been talk of a maritime museum here over the years but as yet nothing has happened.
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It wasn't all mangroves today.
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The tanning pit at Jacks Beach is left over from the early 1900's.
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HMAS Otama
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| Jacks Beach isn't Australia's best swimming beach. |
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After my short submarine appreciation detour I set off towards Hastings. The route initially starts with a few hundred metres of your typical gravel bushwalking type of track before reaching a slippery surface sign and heading out across the mangrove flats on a long section of boardwalk. The boardwalk is probably what makes this walk so interesting, to be able to pass over more than a kilometre of muddy tidal flats on this easy, almost artistically styled path makes for interesting walking and while you wouldn't want to walk it every day, once every so often has a bit of novelty value. After the first long section of boardwalk the track heads inland for a couple of hundred metres before once again heading out over the mangroves.
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Looks like the Feral Walker busting a few moves on the dance floor in his youth...
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The weather to the north wasn't actually too bad today, the weather to the south west was another matter all together though.
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The second long section of boardwalk saw me crossing over a few larger pools of water, some of which had their own resident bird life. As I slowly made my way towards Hastings the industrial side of this area got closer too, the large petrochemical plant being another thing that is not normally seen on a bushwalk. Now that all sounds pretty crap but really the industrial plant is a fair way away across Western Port Bay so it's never really that intrusive, and anyway in the other direction I was looking across the water to French Island so it all evened out. With the houses of Hastings getting a little closer the path leaves the boardwalk and I started to follow a raised gavel path, crossing a couple of muddy creeks on the way this section actually has the most mangroves.
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There has been a fire through here recently and a lot of the boardwalk has been rebuilt, the coastal scrub is still looking a bit second hand in spots though.
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The creeks draining through the mangroves sometimes look more like muddy drains.
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| As you would expect there was no shortage of water birds populating the wetlands. |
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Passing through the gate that protects Warringine Park I wandered along the Hastings foreshore, I was now heading for the Pelican Pantry for a coffee, well at least that was the plan. By the time I arrived at Hastings marina and the café the weather was starting to look pretty dodgy, not only was the wind howling but the black clouds were starting to build up in the west, so the coffee plan went out the window and I decided to start making tracks back to the ute before I got too wet. Before leaving the marina area I did check out some of the flash boats in the harbour, ah yeah if only I was born into money......
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Once I arrived at Hastings I followed the foreshore around to the marina.
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The Hastings foreshore makes for surprisingly nice walking.
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Old mate the pelican adopted an aerodynamic position when he was paddling into the wind.
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Hastings Marina providing safe harbour to a lot of flash boats.
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| Hastings is an industrial town on Western Port Bay, for the most part most of the heavy industry is a fair way way from this stroll. |
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With my return walk basically being a retrace the gathering clouds actually added a bit of interest and drama to the walk. Once I was back in the wetlands the higher tide had enticed a few water birds in a bit closer to the shore, the boardwalk making it easy to get closer to the birds than would otherwise be possible. The overcast conditions on my return walk also seemed to bring out the colours a bit in my photos, when your walking across mangrove wetlands you need all the help you can get when it comes to taking photos I think (well at least I do!). Approaching the end of the last section of boardwalk I allowed myself to think for the first time that I might actually finish this walk without getting wet, and so it was. I arrived back at the ute nice and dry, but even more annoyingly than the rain would of been were the swarms of sandflies that immediately started snacking on my blood. Needless to say I didn't hang around, I was quickly into the ute and heading home.
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Heading back the weather was looking a bit dodgier.
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The low line of small hills in the distance is French Island.
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The Dirt.
Ok, according to the GPS I walked 10.2 kilometres at an average speed of 4.2 kph on this easy stroll. Now that all sounds pretty reasonable but my GPS also said that I climbed 212 metres, now even if I did leg squats for the whole walk I don't think I would of remotely got close to 212 metres of climbing, I don't think that I've ever done a flatter walk than this one. So what's the go with the GPS? We'll I have a couple of theories and as it's my blog I'm going to share them with you whether you're interested or not! My first theory regarding the metres climbed centres around the weather, if (and it's a big if) my GPS calculates altitude by barometric pressure like my watch does then the approaching storm may have played havoc with the reading. My other theory centres around the peculiarities of this stroll in that for long sections I was technically walking over the sea, with the boardwalk crossing tidal flats my GPS may have thought that I was walking below sea level and then crossing back up onto dry land, yeah I know it's pretty flimsy but it's all I've got. For anyone thinking of doing this walk then I used some notes out of Ken Martin's book Walks of the Mornington Peninsula, it's walk number 26 in the book. The map out of the Melways would probably be enough to safely compete this walk though, you just hit the coast and turn left and then turn around and head back, it's not much of a navigational challenge.
Relevant Posts.
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| I'm thinking the more overcast conditions on my return journey actually didn't hurt my photos to much. |
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| The end of the long boardwalk, the stroll is nearly over. |
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| Arriving back at Jacks Beach Reserve. |
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