We went hiking at the You Yangs Regional Park on Sunday and enjoyed experiencing the place at about the quietest it’ll be, possibly for a long time.
The You Yangs are about half way between Melbourne and Geelong, so it’s usually super busy.
At the moment, Melbournians are still living under COVID restrictions and aren’t allowed to travel more than 25 km from their home. The You Yangs are about 30 km from the closest Melbourne suburb, so we took advantage and headed there for a bush walk.
Our hike started with a bit of elevation, from the car park which is about half way or so of the way up to Flinders Peak, we went straight up to the Flinders Peak summit, which is the highest point in the You Yangs Regional Park.
From the Flinders Peak summit lookout, we had a view out to Port Phillip Bay where we could see the Melbourne city skyline on one side and Geelong on the other, then out all other directions are massive plains covered in farms with different mountain ranges dotted across the horizon.
After taking our time at the looking off into the distance, we followed the same trail back down the hill until we almost got back to the car park and reached the East West Walk. This trail took us around the mountain and then we veered off and headed along the Northern Range Track.
There was some nice views of the typical Aussie bush and a few Kangaroos along these trails. The terrain remained fairly similar most of the way, although the flora changed quite a bit and kept the walk a little bit more interesting.
Our entire hike followed parts of several of the You Yangs most popular hiking trails. All up, it was meant to be 14.5 km, although we took a wrong turn and followed the Branding Yard Trail, which joined/left the Northern Range Walk. This seemed to cut pretty directly (while winding) back to the Flinders Peak car park, where we had started. In the end, we would have walked from about 10-12 km.
For winter, it was great weather and a good day out in nature. It was a great opportunity to hike at the You Yangs without the huge volumes of visitors. If you missed the video, it’s at the start of this blog post.
We’re heading off to Halls Gap next weekend to test out our new caravan. We’ll absolutely be getting the boots out while we’re over there and look forward to showing you here, on the WAY&FARER blog.