Melbourne Park Walk: North East Circuit Walk – Yarra Bend Park – Kew – Victoria

Date of Walk: 14/02/2009
Length (km): 3.4 km
Time (hrs/min): 40 min
Grade: Moderate
Return / Circuit / One-Way / Partial Circuit: Partial Circuit
Region: Melbourne
Park: Yarra Bend Park
Closest Town: Kew
Ascent: approx. 43 m (according to MapMyWalk.com)
Maximum Height: approx. 58 m (according to MapMyWalk.com)
Map: Highlighted extract from ParkWeb Park Note (Yarra Bend Park – Visitor Guide)
Further Details / Source(s): ParkWeb Page: Yarra Bend Park and ParkWeb Park Notes: Yarra Bend Park – Visitor Guide and Yarra Bend Park – Walking Trails

Getting There: Access is via Yarra Bend Road, Fairfield, (Melways Ref: 30 H12) which is off Heidelberg Road. The walk starts on the track between the first oval (on the left) and the NMIT Campus.

Comments: I had a look on Google Earth and this appeared to be one of the other more bushy parts of Yarra Bend Park so I decided to explore. My highlighted map (above) only gives a rough idea of where the tracks are located, since some of the tracks weren’t on the map. Follow my instructions below closely and you should be able to complete the same walk but if you end up taking a different path, it’s pretty much impossible to get lost as long as you don’t go past any of the surrounding roads (or the river). You might find that it’s more fun to just explore.

Follow the track between the oval and NMIT down to Pipe Bridge and turn right immediately after you cross, then take the next left and head South-East along the river. Turn left after about 600 metres onto a rough track that may be hard to see so. Make sure it’s the first one you come to. It climbs steeply up the hill. When the track flattens out there is another junction where it is quite hard to pick which track to take. Make sure you’re heading in the direction shown on the map to the Main Yarra Trail.

Turn right here and then left on Yarra Boulevard. After a short walk along the road, I noticed that there was a walking track along-side the footpath so I moved onto that. It soon joined back onto the footpath but at this point there was a gap in the fence and another track heading down into the bush. I followed this track and turned left where it meets the river, taking me back to Pipe Bridge.

I highly recommend visiting this part of the park! It was busy but it was such a great spot to explore that it didn’t matter.