Endeavour Fern Gully Walk - November 2021

Endeavour Gully.

This tiny Endeavour Fern Gully Walk is another short Sunday morning stroll that Sam and I did instead of our traditional Sunday morning brekky date, this was back in the days where we still had to isolate for a week or two if we sat in the same cafe as someone who had Covid. After grabbing takeaway coffee and a couple of bacon and egg rolls we headed down to Red Hill to check out this little stroll. There was no actual guarantee that we'd actually be able to walk this track today as this part of the Mornington Peninsula had suffered through it's second set of 'once in a hundred year' storms for this year a week ago and the power was still being reinstated and the trees were still being cleared. Thankfully while there was a massive amount of trees down we were still able to access the carpark for this little stroll.

There had been a fair bit of weather related carnage up at Red Hill recently.

Once we found the start of the walk the track was pretty obvious. 

There is a rough shed just inside the park that would provide a bit of shelter on rainy day.

Leaving the car park Sam and I dropped down the good track down towards Endeavour Gully, the next question I had knocking around my head was exactly how many downed trees would we have to negotiate on the walk - yes, I 'think' a bit too much sometimes! After avoiding our return track which came in from the left a few minutes after we set off Sam and I continued down the well benched track as it descended fairly gently. Now this walk is called the Endeavour Fern Gully Walk, however for the most part the track actually stays out of the gully, flirting with it occasionally but staying slightly higher up the slopes for the most part. As Sam and I made our way further south the track passed by some cleared rural land before it entered a very ferny section that was made easier by some nice sections of duckboards and then finally we crossed the gently trickling Endeavour Gully (Endeavour Creek?) and started our return walk north along the eastern slopes of the gully.

The bush was looking very lush after months of good rain.

Dropping down into Endeavour Gully.

Endeavour Gully

Endeavour Gully.

Whereas the walk downstream had mostly been through fairly wet forest our walk back up along the eastern slopes was through a lot more of an open and dryer type of forest. It was along this section that Sam and I finally had to clamber over a couple of fallen trees however considering the carnage that we'd witnessed on the drive in there was bugger all damage down here. Pondering why there weren't many trees down (I told you I think too much - Sam thinks I'm on the Spectrum and I tend to think she's right!), I came up with the theory that this side of Red Hill must of been sheltered from the full force of the winds during the storms. Our walk back up to the ute once again followed a pretty good track and we also had another couple of nice sections of boardwalk to negotiate as we climbed, although like our walk down the gully the walk back up pretty well stayed clear of the ferny gully, now down to our left. After climbing for 15 minutes or so we crossed the headwaters of Endeavour Gully and re-joined our outward route before climbing the last few metres back up to the ute.

This is a beautiful little park.

Looking down towards Endeavour Gully as we climbed up the eastern slope.

The surrounding rural country can be glimpsed through the trees in a few spots.

Endeavour Gully.

The Dirt.

According to my GPS we walked around 1.8 kilometres and climbed about 63 metres on this very easy walk. Despite my mediocre, half arsed write up this is actually a pretty good walk, the tracks are pretty clear and well marked, there are some nice boardwalk sections and when the route does get close to Endeavour Gully there are some impressive ferns. There is an issue though and that is that this place is pretty well un-signposted from the road from what I could tell, I just looked for the dirt driveway which is on the opposite side of Arthurs Seat Road from the adjacent Red Hill Tennis Club. The issue with the un-signposted entry is that most of the big flash county estates up here also have very similar un-signposted gravel driveways so it would be very easy to end up in some rich bastards front yard, yes I'm sure they'd be happy to see the Feral Jalopy rattle in their gate early on a Sunday morning! This was an AllTrails walk, although Google Maps may get people through, I used my GPS topos this morning.

Relevant Posts.

OT Dam Walk, Arthurs Seat State Park, 2021.

OT Dam to Eatons Cutting Walk, Arthurs Seat State Park, 2016.

Climbing the eastern slopes we had plenty of views down to the ferny gully.

There is another nice boardwalk section along the eastern side of the gully.

This was a nice easy walk - it actually felt like a real bushwalk!

Sam and I were about to re-join our outward route and head for home.