I must say, I’m happy to be writing this You Yangs post. It’s Friday afternoon, work is done, it’s still daylight, yet I feel like going to bed. Talk about feeling stuffed. The bonus is this entry will be quick and with only a handful of photos I reckon I can write it and hit publish within an hour. Is it possible?
My last post described a stroll up Flinders Peak in the You Yangs, whilst accompanied by a multitude of sweating hordes on a Sunday afternoon. This walk starts from the same place as the rush hour stroll, but there’s a big difference. No one seems to do it. I had a punter-free run, whilst wandering this underrated walk. Oh yeah, there was definitely a surprise at the end, which is the reason I decided to write up these You Yang walks at all.
Now, whoever named this short walk which circles Flinders Peak, certainly didn’t test their imagination too much. “Okay, this walk runs east, but then goes west. What shall we call it?” Oh yeah, East/West Walk is its name and maybe a nondescript title puts people off? Who knows, but it was a bonus for me.
There really isn’t much to write about, so I might as well get into it. After a steady climb I was impressed by the views from the track. The sky was a little strange though and for a moment it looked as if a lenticular cloud was forming. Almost.
See the cloud in the middle? It seemed to be developing the lenticular shape, before turning into a stretched out mess. Can you see what I mean? If not, how about this method. Look at the cloud and then close your eyes. Now get your partner to clock you across the back of your head with a large, rubber mallet. Now open your eyes and look at the cloud again. It’s lenticular, isn’t it? Maybe I’m getting delirious, but that can happen when you’re a cloud-nut who’s never seen a lenticular in the flesh.
The views kept coming, but I also continued keeping an eye on the clouds, as they were potentially photo-worthy.
The open vista was impressive, but so were the various rocks and boulders lying around. I do like big rocks. If you’re repeating that last sentence to anyone, ensure you get it right because if you slip up, the person you’re talking to might raise their eyebrows a little bit.
One interesting boulder is noted as an old Aboriginal shelter. Until seeing it, I was a bit sceptical, but on close inspection it was a beauty. If the weather was crap, this is the rock to shelter under. The photo doesn’t really show how enormous it is.
Moving on, there were a few more open views…
…and some sections where the track was hemmed against the granite.
I must say, it was action aplenty as the views continued…
…but the worse thing about the whole place is it’s over too quick. This is only a 5 km walk and I’d knocked it off in no time. I wish it was twice that length. I suppose I could just keep doing laps all day and turn it into an epic? Umm… No. Even I wouldn’t do something as dumb as that.
It was a shame to see the car park come into view so quickly, but there was a little bit of magic left up the East/West sleeve. Only a few hundred metres from the bitumen I saw an object in a tree and its shape was mighty familiar, but at first I thought I was seeing things.
I may have rubbed my eyes in order to convince myself I was actually seeing a koala climbing, but there’s no mistaking that shape. It certainly wasn’t his sort of tree for eating, so maybe he snuck up there when he heard my thumping feet approaching? I didn’t want to get too close, but the zoom lens was on my side. Luckily for me, I was able focus on our furry friend, rather than the branches in front of him.
Strolling behind, I took another photo and although he was keeping a fairly close eye on me, he seemed non-plussed.
Can you see why I had to write up the You Yangs walks? Seeing a koala in the wild is always a special moment and come to think of it, I can’t say I’ve seen any on walks since the Great Ocean Walk from a few years ago.
There you go. That’s the walk done. How easy was this post? No need to dig in for the long haul, as it was over before it even got going. The East/West Walk, You Yangs Regional Park is a great little walk though, with plenty of views, big rocks and some native wildlife. There was a last piece of comedy when I perused the GPS. Remember how I said it was only 5 km? Well, I lied. It was 4.59. No wonder I was finishing before getting out of first gear.
What’s to come? I’m not sure, but there’s a few posts in the pipeline. See how I go at work next week. If I’m not too knackered at night I’ll tap out something a bit longer. Oh yeah, remember the start about writing this up in an hour? It took me 2 hours 45 minutes. Almost an hour…
It took me under an hour to read. Case for me to cough up for DSLR reinforced by your pics. Clouds look amazing. Off to Heathcote for my Sundays in September stroll this weekend. Good luck cranking it out next week.
I've tried using lighter, my hiking friendly, smaller cameras, but I need the oomph of a DSLR viewfinder. I also find a DSLR menu a lot simpler than some compacts!
Heathcote is nice. I've got a Mt Ida post from last summer I haven't written about yet! I've got more stuff on the 'post' backburner than I can control.
You've struck koala gold again! I haven't seen any since the Great Ocean Walk – understandably, they're thin on the ground (or in the trees) in this part of the world. (Maybe in a restaurant…)
You should give a cloud photo workshop. These ones are straight out of Tolkien via Peter Jackson!
I've heard of koalas being in the You Yangs, but never did I think I'd see one, plus in such a public area. He was only a few hundred metres from the car park.
You're right. The GOW is the only place where I've seen them on tap! Pretty rare sighting otherwise or maybe I'm blind.
Look, the clouds are a little mental. I can't say I'm happy with them, as they didn't exactly look like this to my eye on the day!
I know this is an older post, but my boyfriend and I just did the East West Walk yesterday and absolutely loved it! Your post inspired us to give it a shot, and it was especially good being quite close to home (Werribee) given that we only got our bums out of bed around midday. Hey – it was a public holiday! What a beautiful walk this was, the changing scenery on the east side versus the west side was really lovely, and the walk surprised me with how pretty it was, and how fun it was with the interesting bits of rocks to climb up now and then. Not to mention the off-track scrambling we did every time Boyfriend saw a cave or boulder he wanted to get a closer look at. We’re new to bushwalking, and out fitness levels aren’t that great (both overweight and unfit – working on it), so this was an awesome cruisy walk for a public holiday afternoon 🙂
Hi Kylie. Thanks for dropping by! Yeah, I really liked this walk as well, so I’m glad you did. I assume the huge expanse of river washed timber is still there? That was a pretty weird thing to come across. Actually, I’m glad you found the walk, as I clearly didn’t by starting on the wrong side 🙂 Oh, the other bonus is you got to walk down Short Cut Track, instead of the other walk I recently wrote about where I had to walk up it 🙂
Hmmm, I didn’t notice a huge expanse of river washed timber, but then I don’t exactly know what river washed timber is, so I may have seen it and not known what I was looking at.. how embarrassing, I sound like the dumbest person alive! We kept our eyes peeled for koalas, but didn’t spot any – maybe next time 🙂
Haha… No, you’re smart and I’m dumb. Ignore me, as I misread the post you were commenting on! I figured it was the East/West walk in Lerderderg Gorge. Talk about a balls up on my behalf 🙂
Oh, now I know which walk you’re talking about, I can say I did love this walk as well! Really surprising, as I always thought of the You Yangs as pretty gentrified and Flinders Peak is always busy, but this was nothing like it. Always thought I’d do it again, but just haven’t got around to it.
I think I got lucky with that koala! Another thing I didn’t expect to see 🙂
Haha it makes more sense now why I didn’t see a large expanse of timber laying around somewhere. I was thinking, “I was looking around so much, HOW did I miss that?” Although now you’ve inspired me to look into the other East/West walk, and if I do get to that one I’ll be sure to report back on whether the timber is still there! 🙂
Oh yeah, it wasn’t one of my better moments! Actually, that Lerderderg walk was one of my favourites of that area. The washed in timber would have to still be there, as there was so much of it. Maybe?!
greg, there seems to be new track in the park – Northern ranges” track, this is in the new version of the parkweb youyangs map. we walked this – only 8 k or so but can be joined onto branding yard trails or even east west walk bit. VERy surprising and interesting!! get the new map! gave me even more respect for youyangs as a walk place esp if you live close. great views, as good but different to east west walk. you should check it out if you’ve been everywhere else. you may, as we were lucky to, look across to some big rock on the skyline and see what looks like a small tree on top, begin to abseil down the side of the rock!
ps my only koala story in that area is riding around the youyangs, seeing one cross the road and me waving and pointing to a truck coming toward us, to say “hey slow down look whats on the road in front of us!” (truck turned off anyway, into a sandmining place’s gate), then I proceeded to stop. and watch this koala walk up the tree around 20 feet. the sound of the claws, the power and ease of it doing this was absolutely mindblowing and a memory forever.
Hi Ian. Really? There’s a new map? I didn’t know that, so thanks for letting me know! By the sounds of things it’s a good walk, as I’ve done all the walks in the You Yangs, but they’re all a bit piece-meal 🙂 Nice to link them up. So you’ve seen a koala in there as well? I’d never have expected them to be in the You Yangs either. Glad you got to see one up and close. They’re intriguing animals 🙂