I decided to take advantage of our recent Cup Day public holiday to explore the trails around Mt Macedon. It’s pretty amazing we get a public holiday for a horse race!
It has been quite a while since I had been out to Mt Macedon, so was good to get out of the city and explore this beautiful area again. It’s under an hours’ drive from Melbourne’s CBD.
We started outside the local Mt Macedon pub and headed up to the Macedon Ranges Walking Track via Douglas Road.
The hike started off well with my mate dropping and shattering his drink bottle, despite it been plastic bottle, think it might have been due to the ice cold water!
The walking trail starts after a short but steep section of road, and then you continue up along steep single track towards Memorial Cross at the top. It is a great spot to stop and enjoy the views plus admire the local gum tree forest and short walk further on to the Major Mitchell lookout also provides a great vantage point to see the local landscape.
We continued past the local tea rooms, which also provide you another great spot to relax and enjoy the surrounds.
We continued along the trail through Camerons Picnic Ground and around the Camels Hump. The Camels Hump is a popular rock climbing spot in the Macedon Ranges. We spent a few minutes watching the rock climbers traverse up along the rocks. We then returned to the track and continue around Days Picnic Ground which we decided was a good spot for lunch. It was a popular spot, with many families taking advantage of the public holiday to enjoy a nice day out with a family barbecue.
A short stroll from Days Picnic Ground is the Eco Tourism Trail which leads to Sanatorium Lake. The lake was built to supply water to the local Sanatorium which was set up to care for patients with tuberculosis in the early 1900’s. The Eco-Tourism Trail offers beautiful high eucalypt forests and a wet fern gully.
Once going past the lake we continue on to the Sanatorium Lake Picnic Ground and down towards Barringo Road and then onto the beginning of Zig Zag Track. The Zig Zag Track winds its way down through local forest to Hemphills Track andwe turned off the Hemphills Track and carried on along Mount Towrong Track towards the peak. As you come out from the treeline of Mount Towrong, you get a great view of the local township of Mount Macedon and beyond. There is a steep section of track as you descend towards Anzac Road and back into Mount Macedon.
This was a great 17km loop along the Macedon Ranges Walking Trail, with the Macedon Regional Park offering around 30kms of walking track to explore the local attractions it’s a great spot to get out of the city for a day trip. It is also popular trail running spot with Macedon being the location local Mountain trail run series each year around May, with 10km, 30km and 50km ultramarathon available.