Trail run from Belgrave

I was looking at the map to find somewhere new to run and I noticed how there is a fat crescent of green in Melbourne's south east; I’ve often run in various parts of the crescent but I haven’t attempted to link the parts, so a run from Belgrave at one end to somewhere at the other end was in order, using public transport at each end. It wasn’t a new place to run but it was a different run. The parts were: Lysterfield NP (which is in two sections divided by Wellington Road and I only ever run in one section at a time), Churchill NP, Police Paddocks Reserve, Dandenong Creek corridor and Tirhatuan Park.

It was a very nice run on a still Friday morning, starting out cool and becoming hot by mid morning. From Belgrave I took the quaintly named Lovers Lane and then the road alongside a creek down towards Birdsland. The lake there was still with a few swamp hens strutting about. I saw plenty of kangaroos on the Birdsland side of Lysterfield, and in a stroke of brilliance I made a last minute decision to run the (hilly) Granite Track so that I could cross busy Wellington Road at the lights, rather than where the Dargon Track and Logan Park Road meet, where I know from driving to Lysterfield that it is virtually impossible to cross on a weekday. I’ve never run the Granite Track in this direction and it was much easier than going the usual way, far less steep.

I did some different trails in the other half of Lysterfield and did some usual trails in the opposite direction. Despite an overall downhill route I still had a few uphills. I passed only one bike and a couple of runners. It was all lovely in the sunshine. The Glen Track was completely dry which is unusual. I especially liked running down the Lysterfield Hills Track rather than up. When I got into Churchill there were more people around and less wildlife. 

My first mess up came in Churchill NP: I thought I could get to the Police Paddocks without running along busy Churchill Park Drive but I found a high fence in my way on the route I had worked out from the map, so I had to backtrack and then run along the road for a while. I could run off the road but this meant running through a series of rubbish dumps.

The Police Paddocks are more open with sparse pine trees. The path did not feel as though it was much used. There was an interesting cairn with a full history of the reserve from 1851 onward, including notes of the police employing native trackers and visiting dignitaries planting pine trees. I stopped to eat some blackberries and a few metres further on saw some rangers who were spraying all the bushes. I hope they hadn’t yet reached the ones I ate from. When I left the reserve and joined Dandenong Creek I initially went in the wrong direction, going under the freeway when I should have been at Stud Road, but it was pretty. The creek was flowing nicely and there were horses in the paddocks.

I rectified my mistake and went the right way along the creek, eventually going under Stud Road. It was hot by now and there was no shade. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to end up, but when I emerged onto a suburban street at the far end of Tirhatuan Park I saw a bus stop fairly soon. Even better, the bus was due in three minutes so it all worked out well. A very pleasant 24.8 kilometres.