Panorama Track, The Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve - August 2021

Gazing out over my Covid Kingdom towards the Dandenong Ranges from Panorama Lookout this morning... hopefully one day I'll once again be free to travel to these distant exotic lands.

The Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve... hmm....yes, you guessed it, I'm back in another Covid Lockdown! Covid lockdown # 6.0 has rolled around in Melbourne and I'm struggling to still find some positives in all this, work, eat, sleep, and fucken' repeat is really starting to wear a bit thin for me after more than a year and a half. Meanwhile the punters who don't give a fuck are out and about at anti vax demonstrations, family gatherings, checking out real estate in Byron and generally spreading this bloody virus near and far. Don't worry about fining these dropkicks either as they will get on a dollar a week payment plan for the next 200 years, unfortunately I can't afford to get a fine as I'd actually have to pay it! That's the problem with this situation, it's turned Darwin's theory on it's head, normally the more mentally challenged in society might do themselves a mischief, however in a pandemic it works the other way around as they infect the more responsible members of society (Doctors, Nurses, Teachers, Police, Paramedics all have no choice but to deal with these morons) - a situation that I hope is rectified when our vaccination strollout is finally completed (sometime around 2030 at the rate we seem to be going!).

Anyway that's the reason that I once again found myself heading to The Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve to go for another Covid Walk. Not wanting to worry too much about social distancing (we are meant to wear masks outside in Melbourne, although if there are no other punters in sight I lapse a little) I was off before 8am this morning - something that's not to hard to achieve when the trail head is only a few minutes from home. After re-setting the GPS I set off through the park gate, immediately crossing Boggy Creek as I walked the short link track to meet the wide concrete Peninsula Link Shared Path. Once on the Peninsula Link Path I followed the wide track as it headed almost due south, the local bird life and early morning sunlight doing wonders for my Feral mojo now. 

Social distancing wasn't much of an issue when I set off first thing this morning.

After crossing Boggy Creek I continued on to meet the Peninsula Link Shared Trail.

Early morning on the Peninsula Link Trail in the Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve.

The early morning light was helping my Feral mojo a bit.

The Wattles are flowering - spring is coming to Melbourne.

After ten minutes or so ambling along the Peninsula Link Path I picked up a dirt track that led me through a tunnel beneath the Peninsula Link Freeway, a slightly unusual feature on a bushwalk. Once on the western side of the freeway I continued heading west along this closed 4wd track, passing through some swampy paperbark country until I arrived at the signposted Link Track. Turning left onto Link Track I shuffled my way south east for another 10 minutes or so before swinging right onto Milkwort Track. Once I'd joined up with the sandy Milkwort Track the walking improved a lot (in my eyes) as I started to climb easily onto some fairly substantial vegetated sand dunes and entered some heathland. The open heathland country now allowing me some longer views as well as seemingly supporting a wide variety of native birds.

Passing through the tunnel beneath the Peninsula Link Freeway.

The area around the freeway is a little swampy.

The walking improved when I climbed into the dunes along Milkwort Track. 

Milkwort Track.

The Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve.

The Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve.

The Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve.

Approaching the suburban houses of The Pines I swung left along Boundary Track for a few minutes before swinging left again onto Panorama Track. I now started a long section of the walk that stayed fairly high on the dunes, firstly along Panorama Track until I arrived at Panorama Lookout and then along another high sandy ridge on Hakea Ridge Track. Panorama Lookout featured a low lookout platform complete with a bench seat which allowed me to take in the views north towards Melbourne, south along the Mornington Peninsula and north east across to the Dandenong Ranges in comfort, although I didn't make myself too comfortable here as this was the only spot on the walk where I had other punters around me.

Panorama Track.

The view from Panorama Lookout extended towards Melbourne and Mt Macedon in one direction...

... and down over the Mornington Peninsula in the other.

Leaving Panorama Lookout I headed off along Hakea Ridge Track.

I'd managed to jag a beautiful winters morning for this stroll and meandering my way along Hakea Ridge Track gazing out at the view I was able to lose myself a bit as I dreamt of adventures (hopefully) still to come, although when the track started to descend beside the noisy Peninsula Link Freeway I was jarred out of my revelry a bit! I now found myself at the southern extremity of this little suburban park and with my two hours of allowable time outside for exercise starting to rapidly tick away I figured that I'd better make a move to get back to the ute. After following Boundary Track for a couple of minutes I picked up Manna Gum Track and started heading north. 

Nice and easy walking along Hakea Ridge Track enjoying the early morning sun.

Hakea Ridge Track scenery.

Dropping down towards the Peninsula Link Freeway - this is the southernmost section of the park.

Unfortunately it was around now that the cloud cover rolled in so my walk back to the ute was a little bit quicker than I'd anticipated as I really didn't take many photos. Heading north I followed a series of sandy tracks, staying a little closer to Peninsula Link than I had on my outward journey. I'd been loosely following an Alltrail map on this stroll however I freelanced a little on my return walk which cut off a couple hundred metres and a lot of retracing. After passing beneath the freeway again it wasn't too long before I arrived back at there car park. Jumping into the ute I meandered my way home through the somewhat quieter lockdowned streets as I mentally braced myself for yet another week of lockdown life.

Unfortunately the cloud cover rolled in for my walk back to the ute. 

Sword Sedge Track.

While I'm not 100% sure on the name of this track it shaved a little distance and a fair bit of back tracking from my walk this morning.

The Dirt.

According to my GPS I walked around 7.3 kilometres and climbed about 102 metres on this easy stroll. There are a lot of tracks criss crossing the Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve which sometimes makes navigation a little tricky, although with so many tracks it would be pretty hard to go wrong for very long in this suburban park. The best thing about walking here is that the open heathland country seems to attract a lot of birdlife and the low vegetation and sand hills also allow for some decent views (there isn't a lot of topography when half of your 5 kilometres from home zone is Port Phillip Bay!). I printed an Alltrails map off the free version of their website, which along with my GPS maps got me through OK this morning.

The Dirt.

Woodland & Dara Track Walk, The Pines Flora & Fauna Reserve, 2020.

I was retracing my route back to the ute now. 

Time to head home for some more quality lockdown time - thank fuck for You Tube hiking vlogs!