Located in Bacchus Marsh approximately 45 minutes from Melbourne CBD, is the beautiful Lerderderg State Park. There are many different starting points to explore this expansive park, on this occasion earlier in the year before all I can do is write about these beautiful places and stay safely in my own home. We started at Mackenzies Flat Picnic Area, and what a stunning area it is. For anyone who has never been here but has been to Werribee Gorge the two parks even though they are about 55 minutes’ drive apart, are extremely similar I think I must have said that at least 20 times whilst we were there. It had great facilities including tables and chairs for picnics, drop toilets which were extremely clean and well maintained and electric BBQ’s.
Starting your walk here you can choose between doing a short easy walk or a medium grade longer walk. Due to the time of day we arrived on the day we visited, late afternoon, we opted for the short easy walk which was Mackenzies Flat to Grahams Dam. It was a 3km walk that the sign said would take one hour return, it certainly didn’t take us that long and it would have taken us even less had there not been a cast of thousands on the day and the path was wide enough to go around people. As it was it felt like we were pulling over to let people coming towards us get passed and waiting to get passed slower larger groups.
It would have been a much more enjoyable day had there not been so many people there, and why the paths were so narrow, in many parts allowing only for single file walking I am not sure. I must point out we did visit on a lovely summer’s day, I can imagine winter months being quieter here, however much, much more fun! The thing is you see is that it was dry as dry can be, the sign at the front states there is not one but two stepping stone river crossings on this walk which of course had our youngest member extremely eager to get started.
Unfortunately, once we arrived at the first river crossing disappointment sunk in as there was not a drop of water to be seen, just the rocks that would usually serve as a means to cross the river left standing bone dry. We soon arrived at the second river crossing and were not in the least bit surprised that it was the same, completely dry. We will most definitely be going back during winter or spring once there has been a decent amount of rain fall, as I think a good flowing river would make for a great deal of fun.
The rock formations along the path for much of the walk were incredible, they had so much detail and character. I know I said earlier it was busy there and you are probably looking at the photos thinking to yourself, it looks pretty quiet to me, well yes you have me there, there are certainly no people in my photos, but I did have to wait and time them carefully to get photos without people in them.
On we went and soon we found some water, it was Grahams Dam and had quite a lot of water in it actually. I had expected it to be more of a pond than a dam due to the dryness of the area, I could see where it would in the wet seasons come up to along the bank.
Heading back to the car park I noticed in the distance a bridge of which of course we had to explore, it was fun for the little one to explore underneath and the big ones to take in the scenic beauty around. Highly recommend visiting here, not that I feel it needs advertising due to the volume of guests it had the day we were there. I will have to put some updates on here after we have been next time as I feel it will be dramatically different, until then stay safe.
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