O’Shannassy Aqueduct Trail – April 2013

April 27, 2013 by Dayna Leave a comment

There was a 1 page write-up about the O’Shannassy Aqueduct Trail in the Yarra Valley Tourist News magazine we picked up at our (regular, but not exactly local) fruit barn. The whole trail is 30km long, but there are several joining points so you can do as much or as little as you like. Stephen suggested that ANZAC day would be a good opportunity to take a walk, so we headed off at about lunch time towards a small town called Warburton, about an hour east of Melbourne.

(Click on a photo to view as a gallery)

The section of O’Shannasy’s Aqueduct Trail that we walked was up on the side of that hill in front

Autumn colours

A sturdy bridge

Getting ready at the Dee Road carpark

Heading off

It was cool out of the sun; lovely day though

There section alongside this bridge was iron – the rest was concrete

The vegetation on the other side of the aqueduct changed reasonably frequently

Lush forest – can you spot Stephen?

More lushness

I think this is device tops up the water in the aqueduct with water from the creek behind it….?

If you had any doubts about it being maintained in any way…

Moss and ferns on the side of the aqueduct

Light through the trees

Eucalypts and tree ferns

Lots of Mountain Ash and tree ferns

A sluice gate – only saw one like this!

4 Crimson Rosellas

A break in the forest

White-browed scrubwren

For a short section of the aqueduct the opposite side had a lower edge – this was a drier section, you’ll note.

Fern tree leaves

A large tre trunk that’s been there for a while

It certainly grew well in it’s day, given the space between each ring

Some of the eucalypts are enormous

Lunch time at Youngs Road carpark (7km mark)

Scratched into the plastic table top, evidence that someone supports/ed our previous PM… that was quite an effective political campaign

Heading back after lunch

Sunset on the way home

Sunset

It’s a pretty cruisy walk because it’s so flat. We chose to walk the section between Dee Road and Youngs Road Carparks which is 14km return. It’s quite a popular section! We passed numerous other walkers (many with dogs, some with prams), cyclists and saw evidence that a horse had also been along here – a trail for everyone, you might say.

My only disappointment during the walk was that my camera battery went flat after the first couple of kilometres! Yes, I forgot to recharge the battery the previous night. Still, Stephen had his camera. I resorted to taking photos with my iphone – not as good, but better than nothing.

A pleasant way to spend an afternoon.

Here’s our map and stats – the timing graph clearly shows the reduction in the number of stops I made to take photos in the return trip back to the car. Consequently, it was a faster average pace, too.

: )