Lysterfield Lake Park - June 2019

I'm thinking that I saw more roos per kilometre than I've ever seen before on this stroll.

Lysterfield Lake Park was the my choice of walking locations today. The criteria for this mornings walk was that it needed to be within thirty minutes drive from home so that narrowed the field down a bit, however Lysterfield Lake turned out to be a bit of an inspired choice I think. Lysterfield Lake was originally constructed in the 1930’s to supply water to the Mornington Peninsula and was decommissioned in 1975 when the nearby Cardinia Reservoir came on stream. Lysterfield Lake was then opened up to the public for recreation in 1986 and has proved a very popular spot, so popular that I tend to avoid it as it gets fairly crowded (by my Feral, loner standards!).

Leaving the car park it didn't look like crowds were going to be an issue this morning.

So to avoid the crowds today I decided that I’d do the walk on a weekday and that an ‘alpine’ start was probably the go. The gates to the park open up at dawn and I arrived around ten minutes later, so far so good. I’m guessing that there is parking for hundreds of cars here in multiple carparks, arriving today though there were only a few other early risers cars scattered about. After pulling on my boots I dropped down to the lake shore, passing through the first of many big mobs of Eastern Grey Kangaroos that I’d see today.

Dropping down to the lake shore I passed through the first of many roos.

We’d had a bit of rain over the last couple of days and setting off this morning I was there was still a fair cover of grey clouds above me so there was no great sunrise photos over the lake unfortunately, the photos that I did take of the lake this morning being more your stock standard ‘brooding. type of shots. Once on the shoreline I re-set the GPS, turned left and headed off. Lysterfield Lake is a very popular boating and swimming spot in the warmer conditions and I now was making my way south first passed the boat launching area and then the swimming beach. While I was shuffling along the deserted, windswept swimming beach this morning I had a bit of an unusual experience too, over the murmur of the wind in the trees I heard footsteps behind me getting closer in a hurry. Turning around to see who was coming up behind me in what was a virtually deserted park I was greeted by a decent sized Roo hoping my way at full tilt. As I turned around the Roo must have finally clocked that I wasn’t a fellow macropod and suddenly skidded to a halt. After eyeballing each other for a few seconds we each went our separate ways, now both wide awake!

Over head conditions were a little on the grey and dreary side at Lysterfield Lake first thing this morning.

Looking south from the dam wall....we're not talking pristine wilderness here.

Lysterfield Lake

After crossing over the dam wall I climbed fairly easily up towards Casuarina Track, heading north along it for a minute or two before branching off to the left along the track formally known as Tramline Track. It looks like Parks Vic are in the process of renaming Tramline Track as the Granite Peak Trail and the start of the Track/Trail is now signposted as such (there are still a few Tramline signposts at the northern end of the track though…just to add to any confusion). Whatever it’s title this track was a good walk this morning, the overnight rain along with with the early morning sun, which was now making an appearance, having left the bush glistening. After passing an old trolley, a left over from when the tramway that I was following was used to transport granite from a quarry to build the dam wall, I knew that I was on the right track.

Tramway Track / Granite Peak Trail heads off here to the left - it looks like Parks Vic might be trying to stop the mountain bikers using the track.

The old trolley on Granite Peak Trail.

Whatever the name of the track is, it made for a nice easy walk first thing this morning.

Have I mentioned the roos?

The bush was looking good after some overnight rain.

As you’d probably expect Tramline Track/Granite Peak Trail made for pretty easy walking and I climbed fairly gently up to Glen Track. After crossing over Glen Track I climbed a steeper pinch up to cross over Valley View Track on a ridge, there are some nice views into Churchill National Park from the intersection. Descending again I stopped to photograph a fire dam (a sure sign that I was struggling for photos) before climbing up Grassy Spur Track. As the name implies Grassy Spur Track (also signposted as Granite Peak Trail in spots) is a track that climbs up a fairly open grassy spur and it was a pretty easy way for me to walk the last few metres up the Trig Point Lookout.

Granite Peak Trail

The early morning views across the Dandenong Ranges weren't too bad this morning.

Granite Peak Trail.

I'm normally struggling a bit photographically wise when I start taking shots of fire dams. 

Grassy Spur.

I started to get some views across towards Mt Dandenong as I climbed Grassy Spur.

Trig Point Lookout is a great spot for a bit of a break and I enjoyed the picnic table this morning as I re-charged my aging muscles, judging by the numbers of Kangaroos around the grassy slopes it looks like they are quite partial to Trig Point Lookout as well. The view from up here is a bit of a mixed bag, the long range views across the Melbourne CBD and over to Mt Dandenong are both pretty sweet…however under lining both of these views is a huge ugly granite quarry that is slowly eating the mountain.

Approaching Trig Point Lookout on Grassy Spur Track.

The Melbourne CBD from Trig Point Lookout...looks pretty sweet hey....

....pulling back a bit it doesn't look quite so sweet though.

The trig at Trig Point Lookout.

Mt Dandenong from Trig Point Lookout.

The Kangaroos seem to like the view up here too.

Dropping off the summit I now followed Quarry Track for the next three and a half kilometres and for the first half of that distance the open cut was right beside the track, however once Quarry Track diverges from the quarry fence things looked up again, scenery wise. Quarry Track now started to head along the edge of the park which borders private semi-rural land. The open paddocks around here not only allowing some nice views down over the rolling grass land towards Wellington Road but also being home to big mobs of roos.

The Boral Quarry, as seen from Quarry Track...

...the view down towards Lysterfield Lake in the other direction was a bit more inspiring.

Quarry Track follows a fence line beside semi-rural land for awhile.

Lysterfield Lake Park, the light was pretty good now.

Reaching Glen Track I turned south and started dropping fairly gently back down towards the distant Lysterfield Lake again, although for the most part the lake was now well and truly hidden in the trees. My paint by numbers walk continued this morning as I turned left along the arrow straight Lambert Track and then 15 minutes later right down the un-signposted Lake Track. It was late morning by now and it had turned into a very pleasant winters morning so it was no surprise that it was along here that I started to meet a lot of other punters out enjoying the nice day. After a bit more left/right/left stuff, and with the blue water of the lake peaking through the trees, I arrived back at the sprawling carpark and my mornings walk was over.

Glen Track

Lake Track

I was getting the occasional glimpse of the lake through the trees again now.

Lake Track, Lysterfield Lake Park.

The Dirt.
I walked 15.5 kilometres and climbed 310 metres on this medium grade walk. It turned out that my cunning, early weekday, mid winter start was a good call, I didn’t really start to run into too many other walkers or mountain bikers until I was almost back to the ute. What I did run into were a lot of Kangaroos, probably the most roos per kilometre that I’ve ever come across on a walk before, sometimes I’d take a photo only to look up and spot a roo or two in the frame. This walk is one of those paint by numbers walk where there are a lot of tracks heading off at random tangents into the scrub (Lysterfield is huge mountain biking destination) and with a lot of park tree plantation it can feel a little dull sometimes I think. If wildlife interests you though then it’s definitely worth walking here - just go early in the day. The Chapman’s, the Daly’s, Mr Thomas and Julie Mundy have all written up walks at Lysterfield in their respective walking guide books. I used the House of Chapman’s notes and map out of the 2nd edition of their book Day Walks Victoria this morning. The Parks Vic downloadable map is a good start for walking here also.

Relevant Posts.
Lysterfield Lake Park, 2016.
Churchill to Trig Point Lookout, Churchill National Park, 2017.
Birds Land, 2015.

My mornings walk finished off with a nice little boardwalk section.

Time to head home....

...after checking out the Lysterfield Lake Humpy.