Brimbank Park
October 10th, 2010 at 20:52Length: 5.5 km
Time taken: 1 hr, 55 mins (with breaks for pics and snacks)
Grade: Easy/Moderate
Climb: 84 metres (as measured by RunKeeper)
Not the nicest walk i’ve been on, but not terrible either. It was a lovely sunny day so the park was filled with people having BBQs and generally hanging out. There were kids riding scooters and bikes all over the place which made the first part of the walk much less peaceful.
Most of the walk was quite exposed to the elements, and being such a sunny day meant we were walking in the sun with no relief for quite a while. Part of the walk is at a high elevation with no shelter, and plenty of sun and wind. It would have been more plesant on an overcast day. I am grateful that the last km of the walk was along some peaceful sheltered river flats where we spotted some bunnies and ducks. This was definitely the nicest part of the walk.
The track itself was nice in most places, especially away from the BBQ areas where there were less people and less noise. The park is under the flight path for Melbourne Airport so loud planes were flying quite low overhead every few minutes. Definitely no serenity here!
We couldn’t do the walk exactly as directed in the book as part of the track (I suspect the nice and more remote part of the track) was closed due to recent storm damage. There was evidence of storm damage on other parts of the track as well. A small jetty used for fishing in the Maribyrnong River was completely covered in a thick layer of mud.
There are actually two walks in the book, one on the east side and one on the west side. We were attempting the east side walk, and i’m not in a hurry to attempt the west side.
I have rated the walk as Easy/Moderate due to the long exposed uphill walk (on a sunny day), but it isn’t a difficult walk overall.
Cracked ground. I suspect from the recent storms.
A section near one of the many Ford's across the river
View from near the top
A pretty field of tall flowers (under power lines)
The track near the top
A rock formation on a cliff along the river
Brown river water
The mud covered jetty
A really interesting tree near the end of the walk