Maribyrnong River Walk - 13.6 Kms

 U3A Hike No 280


Hike Report by Jan 

As is our custom, whenever there is a fifth Thursday in the month we head off to do a walk in Melbourne somewhere.
Fourteen of us met at the Ballarat Railway station just after 8 am and caught a train to Footscray station where we jumped off and got on a tram out the front of the Footscray Market. This took us to stop 48, close-ish to Highpoint Shopping Centre, where we walked along busy Cordite Avenue/Canning Street to the official beginning of our hike along the Maribyrnong River Trail. But first was the all important stop for toilets and morning tea in the Canning Reserve BBQ rotunda.

As we walked along the paved river trail we noticed the huge area that the Defence Department occupies on the opposite bank. Apparently it is now little used. The Riverview Tea Gardens which were built in 1909 and included sports grounds, tennis courts, a dance hall, bird aviaries, a native animal enclosure, kiosks and statues. Sadly, a replica of the White Lady statue is the only remaining feature of this once vibrant place. A reminder of flooding (rubbish) was seen high up in the vegetation along the river but a much more attractive sight were some of the old and twisted peppercorn trees next to our path.

The track moved away from the river for a while and we crossed Steele Creek and gradually went uphill to stop and look at the views near Buckley Street and then on further to the view across the Defence Department buildings to the towering buildings of Melbourne's CBD. The track took us back to the riverside where we stopped for lunch in another rotunda. This part of the path was particularly well used by cyclists. 

We passed a golf course on the opposite side of the river and Colin picked up a stray golf ball which must have arrived because of some golfer's extremely enthusiastic technique but terrible sense of direction! Another sporting place on the opposite side of the river was Flemington Racecourse. On our side were the lovely gardens in Footscray Park and also Pipemakers Park which was the location of several significant historical industrial enterprises including an early boiling down works, railway engineering foundry, one of Australia's earliest and largest meat canneries, the first meat freezing works in Australia, and one of the first reinforced concrete pipe works in Australia. 

After the Princes Hwy/Ballarat Rd underpass we turned right off the Maribyrnong River trail and into the quiet green-ness of the Newell's Paddock Urban Nature Park. Walking further we came out into a street of old original Footscray houses, many in need of some TLC to bring out their past beauty. From there it was a short walk past a very large image of Franco Cozzo and back to the Footscray Railway station. We only had to wait a little while before we caught a train back to Ballarat. It was a much quieter trip home and I might have even seen some snoozing after our 13.6km walk. 

Thanks Andrew for all your planning and leading. And thank you Geoff for keeping behind us stragglers.

Photos by Andrew




























And a couple of historic photos (see many more in the Historical Notes Link)

RIVERVIEW TEA GARDENS

    

LINKS



Comments

  1. Jan4 December 2023 at 09:06

    Thanks for finding a photo of the Tea Gardens Andrew. It's not quite the picture I had in my mind but it must have been an enjoyable place.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous4 December 2023 at 11:29

      My pleasure Jan. A great hike report.

      Delete

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