Mount Lofty
September 5th, 2010 at 10:58Length: 5km
Time taken: 1 hr, 35 mins (including stops for photos and rain)
Grade: Easy-Medium (listed as Easy in the book, but the steep hills push it to a medium in my opinion)
Climb: 103 metres (as measured by RunKeeper)
Starting at the end of Reserve Rd Wonga Park, this is a gorgeous walk that took us down along the banks of the Yarra River before heading up to the Mt Lofty summit where there are some great views of Lilydale and beyond in the distance.
The track is a quite well maintained gravel foot track along the Yarra, with a number of ups and downs, before changing to a park maintenance road as it winds up to the summit. The section of track up to the summit is steep, but didn’t feel as bad as it looks. However it was steep and long enough for me to consider this an easy-medium grade walk.
After reaching the summit, the track continues along the top for a while before heading around past a farmhouse and down the mountain until it meets back with the river track. This last section of track is quite grassy and unfortunately it started raining heavily when we reached the summit which made this track that descends steeply down the mountain quite muddy and slippery. Luckily there were no slips!
Along the way we spotted a few families of kangaroos dozing and grazing on the slopes of Mt Lofty, and even a couple of rainbows due to the mixed weather.
Overall this was a great walk and a great start to reaching my goal! 1 down, 39 to go!
Beginning of the walk
Yarra River
The river was a bit swollen from heavy rains
Wattle growing along the track
A rainbow in the distance
The view from the near the summit
Interesting tree
This Kangaroo crossed the track in front of us
Another Rainbow
Canoeists in the Yarra River