Farnsworth Track, Mornington Peninsula National Park - August 2018

London Bridge

After arriving home from my Green Gully walk (which I’ll start posting very soon) I was looking for a fairly relaxing stroll this week. With Sam keen to accompany me we decided to once again head down the Mornington Peninsula to do a walk. This morning we headed all the way down to Portsea to walk the Farnsworth Track, well to be truthful the Farnsworth Track section of the walk covered less than half the very small distance that we would walk, the majority of today’s stroll was a beach walk between the Portsea Surf Lifesaving Club and London Bridge.

Looking west towards London Bridge, in the middle ground, and the Bellarine Peninsula in the distance, from the walk start near the Portsea Surf Club.

Arriving at the windswept carpark above Portsea back beach we immediately had to modify the walk as the surf club is in the middle of a big renovation and the ramp accessing the beach is closed. Not that it mattered that much, we just headed to the western end of the large carpark and picked up some steps that would lead us down to the sand. The back beach was deserted this morning save for a few hardcore surfers braving the frigid waters of Bass Strait, but while it was certainly cold the overhead conditions were fairly clear and we were walking under blue sky and weak sunlight.

The Portsea back beach was largely deserted this morning, apart from a few hardy surfers anyway.

There is plenty of interest on this short stroll.

Once on the sand we beach-combed our way west along the shoreline. With London Bridge well and truly in sight from the carpark this isn’t a very long walk, the walking however takes a while as there is quite a lot to stop and check out on the way. With the tide being almost dead low the exposed rock shelfs were a bit of a feature this morning, the waves crashing onto the rocks adding even more interest. The protected reef along here makes for some interesting swimming at low tide in the warmer months, but you’d have to be keen to jump in at the moment no matter how inviting it all looked.

Bass Strait always puts on a bit of a show.

The nearby Port Phillip Heads is the entry point for all the ships coming in and out of Melbourne.

With the rock stack that is London Bridge now right in front of us we continued our journey west, rock hoping our way past and heading towards the next rocky headland. Judging by the fence line running along the top of this headland I’m thinking his might mark the boundary between the Mornington Peninsula National Park and Point Nepean National Park. At low tide there is a sea cave that passes through the headland that allows you to emerge at another beach on the western side, the only thing is I’m not sure if you are meant to access this beach or not. I decided that maybe I shouldn’t explore any further towards Port Phillip Heads, so after getting a photo of the beautiful beach with it’s rock stacks I headed back through the sea cave. I’m guessing the issue here is either Parks Vic are worried about unexploded ordinance at Point Nepean or they are concerned about walkers getting stuck on the wrong side of the headland as the tide comes in and the sea cave becomes impassable.

The back side of London Bridge.

Looking west along what I'm guessing is Point Nepean National Park.

There are plenty of nice swimming spots at low tide, if only the weather was twenty degrees warmer...

Wandering back past London Bridge we were now heading for the beach access track from the London Bridge Carpark which we climbed up to the lookout. This is one of the Mornington Peninsula’s biggest natural tourist attractions and we weren’t alone up here. To be honest I think the views are better from beach level than they are from up at the lookout but it’s definitely still worth a look. After checking out the lookouts at London Bridge we picked up the well signposted Farnsworth Track and started the inland section of this mornings stroll.

We were pretty lucky with the weather this morning.

Cape Schanck in the distance.

The Farnsworth Track is named after an early resident of the Sorrento/Portsea area John Farnsworth, he was basically an early property developer having built both the Sorrento Hotel and the Nepean Hotel at Portsea, among other things. The Farnsworth family supplied the funds to build the track in 1987. Farnsworth Track meanders its way between London Bridge Carpark and the Portsea Surf Club Carpark through the dunes and there is a surprising amount of climbing involved in this short stretch of the walk as the track goes from dune crest to dune crest.

The London Bridge Lookout allows for a slightly different perspective of the coastline.

London Bridge...I'm thinking the view from sea level is better.

There is no shortage of track signage here.

The high points on Farnsworth Track allow for a few different vistas than the earlier beach stroll had done, looking across Port Phillip Bay we could see the buildings in the Melbourne CBD in the distance. Looking up the peninsula we could see how narrow the Mornington Peninsula is here, with the calm waters of Port Phillip Bay on one side and the wilder Bass Strait on the other side. After one last lookout we descended back down to the surf club carpark and our mornings walk was officially over.

Farnsworth Track

The track meanders it's way through the dunes.

The white speck in the distance is the Cape Schanck Lighthouse.

The Dirt.
We walked 4.5 kilometres and climbed 119 metres on this easy stroll. While the walk is fairly short there is a bit of rock hoping as well as some soft sand walking involved. The beach section is best walked near low tide if you want to fully explore around the London Bridge area. We used the map out of Woodslane’s Best of the Mornington Peninsula book, a lot of other guide book writers have also featured this walk over the years, Parks Vic also have enough free stuff online to do this walk safely. There are also a vast choice of eateries in this part of Victoria if you feel like a meal before or after the walk, we headed to Sorrento for lunch today.

Relevant Posts.
Sorrento, 2016.
Sorrento to Blairgowrie, 2018.
Mornington Peninsula Coastal Walk, 2015.

If you squint you might be able to pick up the high rise buildings in the Melbourne CBD on the other side of Port Phillip Bay.

There is a reasonable amount of climbing on Farnsworth Track.

Looking down to the surf club carpark, Port Phillip Bay on the left and Bass Strait on the right.