Daangean Point Walk, Devilbend Natural Features Reserve - October 2021

One of the Devilbend locals.

Way back in the Covid before times, Sam and I use to enjoy a Sunday breakfast date each week down at a local café. Covid put a screaming halt on those breakfasts though as the café, if it was even open, was usually outside our Covid travel zone. So with our latest lockdown restrictions easing far enough that travelling 25 kilometres from home was actually legal you'd think that we'd be keen to get back to our favourite café. Well we were pretty keen however as usual there was an issue. You see if you are exposed to someone who has Covid (lets say, someone sits in the same café as you) then that means a two week quarantine at home. What are the chances of that you may think, well of the thirty blokes who work for me I've got 4 of them at home on 2 weeks quarantine. One of them in a family of 5 is sitting at home as the members of his family slowly test positive, the 2 week clock gets re-set every time someone in the house tests positive, I'll be lucky to see him before December I'm thinking. Another bloke spent 2 weeks at home with his Covid positive partner and then tested positive on his third (2 week) test, yep another 2 weeks at home for him too. So what's this got to do with a predominantly walking blog, well not a lot really except for the fact that for the foreseeable future Sam and I will be enjoying our weekly Sunday morning date drinking take away coffee on a local walk - getting locked at home again isn't really something that either of us would enjoy at the moment.

There is plenty of parking and a well appointed picnic ground at the start of this little walk.

The tracks here are generally well signposted.

Anyway, that is the long and winding preamble to how we found ourselves parking the ute down at Devilbend Reservoir early this Sunday morning. Setting of with just our umbrellas and my camera we meandered off to check out the short Daangean Point Walk. Our mornings stroll had us walking through some old Radiator Pines initially before swinging south-west away from the pines and out onto Daangean Point. This walk had been on my radar for awhile as I'd heard a rumour that it was a bit of a cliff jumping spot, I'd always had it pencilled in for a summer walk as I figured a little bit of cliff jumping on a hot day would be a pretty good thing. So as we shuffled our way out along Daangean Point I was interested to see numerous tracks heading into the scrub in the direction of the water - although they all pretty well started behind a fence that was meant to keep the punters out of a revegetation area....hmm. Being a stickler for rules I decided against traipsing through the revegetation zone to see if I could find the cliffs and instead Sam and I continued down the point to very soon arrive at water level.

My legs haven't seen a lot of sun sitting at home in lockdown.

Devilbend Natural Features Reserve.

Daangean Point features native scrub - unlike a lot of the Devilbend Natural Features Reserve which is home to a lot of introduced flora.

Devilbend Reservoir - looking across the water towards Woods Bushland Reserve.

This is another spot that would be good in summer I'm thinking as the wild swimming would be pretty good here, although today we were getting wet from a passing shower and not a quick dip. After a ten minute walk along the shoreline we left the water and picked up a signposted track that headed inland and re-joined our outward route. After retracing our route for a few minutes we headed left and once again dropped down to the water line. We were now checking out the major recreation area for the reservoir, there are a couple of big fishing platforms here (the reservoir is stocked with fish) as well as a water craft launching area. Checking out the fishing platform to my left I noticed that it was at the edge of what looked like an old quarry, yes it seems I'd found my cliff jumping spot I think. With my mornings mission accomplished after finding the cliff jumping spot,  Sam and I ambled the last few metres back to the ute under a weak sun before heading home. 

Devilbend Reservoir from Daangean Point.

The old reservoir is home to a lot of waterbirds.

The weather was a little changeable this morning...

... although I'd come prepared.

I'm thinking that this might be the cliff jumping spot on Daangean Point?

The Dirt.

According to my GPS I walked around 3 kilometres and climbed about 62 metres on this easy stroll. There  are some good picnic facilities in this little park, mostly around the car park area. The walk is well signposted and the tracks are fairly clear so it should be a walk within most peoples capabilities. This is another Alltrails walk although Google Maps will get most people through safely I think. There is a surprising amount of wildlife in this park and it's not just waterbirds, we spotted Wallabies as well on our short stroll. 

Relevant Posts.

Devilbend Reservoir Circuit Walk, Devilbend Natural Features Reserve, 2020.

Woods Bushland Reserve Walk, 2019.

The closer we got the car park the better the facilities got.

Looking back towards Daangean Point from the fishing pontoon.

It's worth meandering out onto the fishing pontoon to check out the view.

We walked the last few metres beneath a bright sun.