Cairns Bay, Mornington Peninsula National Park.
Tea Tree Creek cascading down a small waterfall to Cairns Bay.
I'm pretty sure that no one has probably picked up on it, however I haven't done any harder walks for awhile, yes there has been no multi night or even one day epics for more than a year. Now part of the reason for that has been that we were locked down for many months in Melbourne due to the Covid 19 situation of which I've moaned about too much already. The other reason that hard walks have been a little thin on the ground I haven't mentioned before is that I've been dealing with a bit of a health issue. For the last year I've had a smallish wound on a finger on my right hand that just refused to heal and consequently I've been dealing with one infection after another. With my GP and numerous doctors scratching their heads as to how to fix it, it's been a little frustrating... to say the least. Anyway, to cut a long and boring story short this week I finally got a Plastic Surgeon to
attack operate on my finger, so with more than a few stitches and only half a nail on my finger I was going to be pretty well taking things easy this weekend.
So instead of waking on Saturday and heading off on a walk I enjoyed a leisurely sleep in before Sam and I motored down the Mornington Peninsula to spend an hour or so wandering around the Red Hill Farmers Market. Not wanting to completely write off the day (as far as walking goes) I figured that I should be able to get in a short walk. My main concern was that I had to keep my finger dry and clean, however I figured that if I timed a small walk in between the showers that were passing through then I should be OK. After having a bit of a think about things we decided to head across the Mornington Peninsula and down to Flinders to do a small walk that we've never done before, the Cairns Bay Walk in the Mornington Peninsula National Park.
There's room for half a dozen vehicles in the small car park beside Boneo Road.
The Cairns Bay Track starts at a small car park beside Boneo Road and arriving this morning there was only one other vehicle at the trail head. After resetting the GPS we set off down through the narrow line of revegetated land towards the coast. Around ten minutes or so after setting off we emerged from our tunnel of Banksias and Casuarinas onto the more open and grassy slopes that are fairly typical of this rural area of the Mornington Peninsula, the views from here on were quite spectacular although the gun metal grey sky was making things a little one dimensional. Once out of the trees the track dropped fairly steeply passing an old quarry along the way, this section of the stroll was actually a little tricky as we'd had a reasonable dump of rain yesterday and the muddy track wasn't offering up a lot of traction this morning.
Initially we dropped down through a tunnel Banksias and Casuarinas.
The track down here was well defined and clear.
We passed this old quarry as we dropped down to Cairns Bay.
After some good recent rain the track was a little slippery in spots today.
With the gradient of the track easing off we found ourselves walking the last few metres towards the coast beside the gently trickling Tea Tree Creek. The small creek tumbles it's last few metres towards the ocean down a nice waterfall here, the black rocks covered in green moss with thin rivulets of water gushing down made for a pretty sight this morning although I'm thinking that this small waterfall on Tea Tree Creek would be best seen straight after a decent fall of rain. Dropping down the staircase we crossed the creek and followed a small pad below the cliffs and above the boulders littering the beach across to a sandy section of the bay, this bit of the small bay is backed by a dune that locked slightly unusual as it crept it's way steeply the steep slopes above the bay.
Tea Tree Creek flows down the gully to the east of the track.
Approaching Cairns Bay the scenery ramped up a bit.
Tea Tree Creek cascading down to Cairns Bay.
Tea Tree Creek.
It was nowhere near low tide this morning however the water level was low enough that I could carefully rock hop my way out onto a reef if I kept one eye on the swell. The advantage of rock hopping out here was that I could get some good views along the coast and down towards Bushrangers Bay. I'm particularly interested in this section of wild coast as apparently it can't be walked at sea level and with the land closer to Bushrangers Bay falling outside the Mornington Peninsula National Park boundary it means walking the cliff tops is pretty well off the agenda too. After checking out a few of the rusting relics from the old quarry that are littering the beach we started our return journey back to the ute.
Looking west along the wild coastline.
Cairns Bay.
Cairns Bay, Mornington Peninsula National Park.
Cairns Bay.
Instead of climbing straight for the ute I decided to take a small grassy pad that led to the top of the headland at the western end of the bay. The view from this headland made the minor exertion to get here worth it. In front of me, looking west, I had a grandstand view of the wild coast all the way down to Simmons Bay. Almost immediately below me the wild surf was cracking into a huge pinnacle of rock and from there heading west it was just a tempest of whitewater cashing into the cliffs as far as I could see... looks promising! Filing an exploration to the west away for another day (when my finger doesn't look like a piece of steak) I meandered my way across the headland to check out the view down to Cairns Bay, now if I hadn't just checked out the wild scene to the west this view would of been the highlight of the day, however now I was spoiled!
Some Feral looking bloke wistfully gazing out to sea.
There are a few relics from the old quarrying days rusting away at Cairns Bay.
I'm thinking I took this photo because I was excited to see a patch of blue sky above us.
Before heading back to the ute I climbed up onto the headland to the west of Cairns Bay to check things out.
Wow!
With the clouds not getting any higher I figured that I'd better make a move to climb back up to the ute. After climbing up the muddy track I arrived back at the corridor of native bush and took the un-signposted track to the left, this track climbed through the native scrub keeping fairly close to some private land however it still made for a fairly nice climb. Just as the rain started to get a little heavier we emerged from the bush back at the now very busy car park. Jumping into the ute and turning on the wipers, we headed the half hour back home, it might have barely qualified as a walk however I was still feeling pretty happy with life this morning - now if only this bloody finger would heal!
I've got this wild stretch of coastline down for an exploratory Feral style of walk one day.
Looking back down to Cairns Bay from the headland.
Climbing back up to the ute - the sky was still looking pretty threatening.
Arriving back in the revegetated bushland area I swung up the track on the left - I'd dropped down the track on the right.
The Dirt.
According to my GPS we walked around 2 kilometres and climbed 81 metres on this easy stroll. This little bay is a bit of a hidden gem I think, I've driven past the car park many times over the years and never suspected what was hiding at the bottom of the track. While the track is clear and well signposted it is a little slippery after rain as it drops to the water level so keep that in mind if you are not overly agile. I found the walk in Ken Martins book Walks of the Mornington Peninsula which helped me locate the start of the track and gave me a bit of an oversight. On the walk I carried my GPS, although to be honest a map or GPS really aren't necessary for this short stroll.
Relevant Posts.
My return track stayed close to some private land on the left.
We just beat the rain back to the ute this morning.
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