Kingston Heath Walk - October 2021

I'd only ever heard about the golf courses at Kingston Heath.

Kingston Heath is prime time golfing country. Situated right in the middle of Melbourne's sand belt region all I knew about the area was that it was home to some famous golf courses. With Melbourne still being in a Covid Lockdown my options were a little limited for a walk this morning, after seeing this little stroll pop up on my Alltrails feed and then realising that it was within my Covid travel zone I decided to head up and check things out. It was just after sunrise when I parked the ute in the empty carpark off Centre Dandenong Road this morning, re-set my GPS and wondered off into Kingston Heath to see what I could see.

It was a grey and overcast start to the day.

After passing through a very impressive children's playground I picked up a gravel path heading off into the park to the north-east. This area of the park is really just a series of sporting ovals dissected by some tree lined walking paths, so the walking was a little mundane first up, a situation not helped by the grey overhead conditions. After passing a lookout over a tiny patch of remnant bushland I continued on to skirt some more ovals as I made across to the western extremities of the small park. The suburban sporting oval walking continued as I made me way north a little, checking out a few baby Corella's along the way. Finally, after crossing the park again to reach the north-eastern extremity of the little reserve I arrived at the equally small Kingston Heath Botanical Gardens.

There is a very small patch of remnant bush in the middle of the park.

I'm thinking that these are juvenile Corellas... although that could be a Feral Fact!

Kingston Heath Reserve.

Kingston Heath Reserve.

The Kingston Heath Botanical Gardens are by far the best bit of this stroll in my opinion and it was nice to be back walking through something vaguely resembling native bush after all the sporting ovals. Unfortunately the botanical gardens are very small so the nice walking was over pretty quickly, however if I ever find myself back over at Kingston Heath I think this is the first bit of the park that I'd head to (unless I had ankle biters in tow and then the playground would be hard to go past). After leaving the botanical park I once again resumed my suburban sporting oval tour, making my way across the park again to the western side before finally dropping back down to the ute.

Kingston Heath Botanical Gardens.

Kingston Heath Botanical Gardens.

After leaving the botanic gardens my suburban sporting oval walk continued.

Kingston Heath Reserve.

Heading across to the western side of the park.

The Dirt.

According to my GPS I walked around 2.5 kilometres and climbed about 4 metres on this easy but fairly mundane stroll. Look, I suppose if you live locally and want somewhere to stretch your legs and re-boot mentally then this park would do the job (judging by the amount of empty alcoholic beverages stacked up around the overflowing bins in the children's playground areas it appears as though a lot of locals are doing some recharging of their own whilst there children let off some lockdown steam!). This walk would be suitable for wheelchairs or prams as there are no steps and this is a reasonably smooth crushed granite surface. I used the Alltrails Map along with my GPS topos this morning, Google Maps will also get you through.

Relevant Posts.

Karkarook Park Walk, 2020.

Namatjira Park Walk, 2020.

The Gravillias added a splash of colour...

... on what was a pretty grey and dreary morning.

Back at the ute - there is a massive carpark at the front of this reserve, I'm guessing it's to service the Capital Golf Course which abuts the reserve.