Woods Bushland Reserve Walk - November 2019

I think that the highlight of this walk is probably this nice little dam, it looks like it would make a nice spot for a swim on a hot day.

After another solid week at work I wasn’t that keen to leap out of bed again when the alarm went off at 4:30 am this morning. Instead I rolled over and went back to sleep, like I’ve said before ‘I’m hardcore!’ By the time I’d eventually surfaced and had some brekky it was closer to 9am than 4:30am, so instead of heading off to some romantic, far off walking destination I decided to look a bit closer to home. After a quick squiz at my walking guide books and a map I decided to head down the Mornington Peninsula a little way and check out a small park that I’ve never visited before called Woods Bushland Reserve.

There isn't a lot of information floating around the inter web about walking in the Woods Bushland Reserve.

There isn’t much information floating around on the inter web about walking at Woods Bushland Reserve (the Parks Vic site appears to be being rebuilt as I write this and all the information sheets, maps and other downloads aren’t working). After my usual extensive two minutes on google I got absolutely nothing about walking or anything resembling a map, so I set off with just Ken Martin’s very rudimentary offerings in his Mornington Peninsula Walks book. What I did find out off google was that Woods Bushland Reserve forms part of a Bio Link that links various different (generally) small reserves on the Mornington Peninsula together to form biodiversity corridors. So, pulling up at an informal car park where Balnarring Road and the tiny Gillett Road intersect, I locked the ute and wandered into Woods Bushland Reserve to see what could see.

I'm guessing that I was initially following an old continuation of Gillet Road.

After around 50 metres walking along the quiet Gillet Road I entered the reserve through a locked gate, it would be possible to drive to this spot but there is bugger all parking here so it’s better to park up beside Balnarring Road I think. Continuing on past the gate it looks like I might of been walking an old continuation of Gillett Road, the dirt track dropping gently to cross a damp gully before climbing a little though some remnant bushland. Initially I could hear the traffic noise on the nearby busy Balnarring Road but soon the vehicle noise had gone and been replaced by numerous bird noises, if there are any twitchers out there reading this, Woods Bushland Reserve would be a good choice if looking for somewhere to go birdwatching on the Mornington Peninsula I think.

The management tracks here were all clear and well defined.

Although while the tracks were clear they weren't signposted (or mapped). Some of the intersections had marker posts with a letter on them but I've got no idea on the meaning of the letter. I went left here.

Just before reaching a decent sized dam I decided to take a left fork track (to the north) and skirt around the dam on it’s west side. My track now climbed a little and after clearing the dam I once again was generally heading east. There are a few markers posts which feature a letter (i.e. ‘G’) but not having any idea what the letters actually signified meant that they were pretty useless to me. There aren’t a lot a tracks, although there are enough that I suppose walkers could get a little geographically embarrassed for a little while. My plan was to head in a general easterly direction until I arrived at the eastern side of the park at Devilbend Reservoir, and that was pretty well how it all turned out. While the tracks here aren’t signposted they are generally fairly clear so walking was pretty easy and it didn’t take long before I could see the water in Devilbend Reservoir glinting through the trees, somewhat ironically at about the same time that I actually arrived at a track that had a name…Woodland Break.

I skirted around the west side of this dam.

There were quite a lot of Grass Trees flowering.

I'm guessing that this is fairly typical of what the Mornington Peninsula looked like before European settlement.

Arriving at the eastern extremity of the park I found a signposted track.

Devilbend Reservoir was just visible through the trees.

After making a fairly half hearted attempt to photograph the reservoir through the trees I set off back towards the ute. Initially I headed west back along my outward route before picking up another substantial management track that headed off in a southerly direction. I was guessing that this track would allow me to circumnavigate the dam that I’d mentioned earlier, where I figured that I’d pick up my outward route again. Now if all that sounds a little speculative it wasn’t so bad, I was keeping a close eye on my GPS and with the park being fairly small and surrounded by roads there wasn’t too much chance of things going too pear shaped for me. Sure enough it wasn’t very long at all before the wide open grassy slopes above the dam came into view, this spot would make a great spot for a picnic I reckon, although there are no facilities at all here. Heading over to the dam to scope things out I was happy to see a nice ‘entry’ spot for the dark water, this looks like it would make a great wild swimming spot on a warm day.

Whilst it's not overly challenging I found the walking in Woods Reserve to be fairly pleasant this morning.

Woods Bushland Reserve

The dam even has a small little beach that would make the entry and exits to the water a bit easier.

Yeah...I hope so!

The grassy slopes above the dam would make a nice spot for a picnic.

After spending a bit of time checking out the dam, which in hindsight was probably the highlight of the stroll, I continued my journey west back towards the ute. Immediately after leaving the dam I picked up my outward route, navigation wouldn’t be an issue now. Retracing the last fifteen minutes or so back to the ute the main interest now was trying to capture a photo of the now sun drenched bush that I could use on the post, as I’ve mentioned before I struggle a little more than usual in these forested areas to get decent photos. With the noise of the traffic once again more prominent than the local bird life I arrived back at the car park beside Balnarring Road, pulled off my boots and headed off on the short drive home.

I think that this is a Sea Eagle that was soaring on the thermals above me?

Retracing my route back to the ute I was enjoying the weak sunshine.

Woods Bushland Reserve.

I was now back on what I guess was once Gillett Road, it was around here that the traffic noise on Balnarring Road overtook the bird noises.

The Dirt.
This is another of those strolls that is a nice enough walk if you find yourself in the area, however it probably wouldn’t be worth a long drive to do it. I’ll offer two caveats on that though, the first one being this little park seems to punch above it’s weight when it comes to bird life (I even spotted a Sea Eagle soaring on the thermals while I was at the dam) the second caveat being that the dam looks like it might make for a great spot to hang out and do some swimming on a hot day. I walked 4.6 kilometres and climbed 52 metres on this easy walk. As I mentioned earlier I used Ken Martin’s notes and map out of his Walks of the Mornington Peninsula book, the information in the book will get you to the park and give a bit of an insight into the flora and fauna however the notes and map bear little resemblance to what I found in the park today as far as tracks and geographical features go…although maybe that’s just me?

Relevant Posts.

Ker-Bur-Rer Walk, The Briars, 2019.
Mt Martha Park, 2015.

Just before reaching the locked gate the track crosses this gully - it looks like this used to be damed at some stage.

This informal carpark beside Balnarring Road is the spot to park - there is no room near the locked gate down Gillett Road.