A Surreal Bushwalk Close to the City!
Wanting a different experience to our usual walks along the Yarra River next to the CBD, we decided to check other spots along the Yarra River to visit. A couple of options came up – Studley Park Boathouse and Fairfield Boathouse.
Studley Park Boathouse was established in 1863 as Burns Boat Shed. It is the oldest continually operating public boathouse on the Yarra River. Studley Park Boathouse is also closer to the CBD compared to Fairfield Boathouse, so we decided to go with the former. [Edit: We visited Fairfield Boathouse a few months later.]
We embarked on the “Bushland Circuit” (about 850 m), which took us about 25 minutes on a return route. It’s an easy walk starting at the Studley Park Picnic Area, on a graded gravel path. There are information signs along the way, which is helpful. For those like ourselves who need a rest stop every now and then, there are benches located at various intervals along the path. We took a few short breaks to soak up the tranquil surroundings, listened to the birds chirping and the burbling sound of the river.
Kane’s Suspension Bridge
We crossed Kane’s Suspension Bridge, which is a suspension footbridge built in 1928 to link Kew and the public golf course. It was destroyed in the floods of 1934, but was subsequently rebuilt in its original style in 1935.
Best Fish & Chips Lunch!
Looping back to the boathouse, we treated ourselves to a fish and chips lunch (battered local rockling, served with house salad, fries, lemon and tartare sauce), arguably one of the best in Melbourne. The fish was crispy on the outside but tender and flaky on the inside.
Yarra Bend Park & Dights Falls Loop
After lunch, we continued on with the “Yarra Bend Park & Dights Falls Loop”. This is a relatively longer circuit of around 4.7 km. As we chose a sunny day for the visit, it was a little more challenging than our pre-lunch walk. We kept walking until we finally arrived at Dights Falls, which is an artificial weir built on natural rock just downstream from the junction of Merri Creek and the Yarra River. It was built in the 1840s to provide water to the flour mill, which was one of the first in Victoria at the time.
Dights Falls is located just next to the Eastern Freeway, so it was rather noisy at some points. Having said that, it was rather surreal soaking up nature while being located so close to the city.
Other Things to See & Do at Studley Park Boathouse
Unfortunately, we didn’t get round to seeing the historic flour mill site as we were too tired to continue walking. We might come back again during cooler weather to hunt for the historic flour mill site.
It’s worth noting that the boathouse offers a hire service, where you can hire rowboats, canoes and kayaks so that you can paddle up or downstream to explore the Yarra River. This service is available everyday, except Christmas Day. Not wanting to test our biceps and over-strain ourselves (oh, the joys of age-ing!), we decided to give this option a miss.
We spotted a good number of ducks, geese and other wild birds. They didn’t seem hungry, otherwise we would have bought some bird feed which is available from the kiosk for just $2.
Our Thoughts About Our Visit to Studley Park Boathouse
Overall, it was an interesting half-day outing that gave us some respite from the hustle and bustle of city living! We loved the picturesque walk along the Yarra River. It felt rather amazing that it’s more of a countryside retreat despite being so close to the city. We particularly enjoyed listening to birds chirping even though we were not able to identify most of them.
It was also nice that other bushwalkers were quietly enjoying their walks which is a vastly different experience from walking in the city where, more often than not, people are talking on their phones or playing videos with the volume on their phones turned on.
