292. St. Kilda to Sandringham 12km

February 29, 2024

U3A Hike No 29

Hike Report By Geoff Howard

After experiencing a day of extreme fire danger on Wednesday, our group of 11 aggregated at Ballarat station on Thursday morning in cool, overcast and even damp conditions while we waited for our 8.20 train to Melbourne. Soon after arriving at Southern Cross we caught a tram on the light rail system to Saint Kilda and soon after 10 o’clock we were ready for our walk along the bay. Conditions continued to be cool and windy for the first two hours of our walk encouraging many of us to maintain our extra layer of clothing for much of our walk from Saint Kilda through to Elwood.

We were pleased that we were able to walk on pedestrian only paths for most of our route, thus avoiding conflict with cyclists.

Along the way we saw, to our left some valuable real estate and, to out right we were able to look out across the bay to see many ships coming into or departing from Melbourne ports. We also passed several marinas containing some big toys for the big boys.

At 12 o’clock we reached North Point, where North Road reaches the waterfront after Elwood beach. Here we took a break for morning tea/early lunch. During this break the sky cleared and the wind dropped so the second half of our work became even more pleasurable.

Continuing on, we came to the Middle Brighton Baths. Like the Brighton Baths which no longer exist these were originally constructed in the 1860’s as 'The benefits of bathing in the sea were being proclaimed and the Sea baths were considered the correct venue'. Bathing in the open during daylight hours was strictly prohibited at that time. The two sets of baths in Brighton were however periodically seriously damaged during storms and in the Brighton cyclone of 1918. Due to the lack of patronage through the mid 1900’s the council determined to demolish the Brighton Baths in 1979, while Middle Brighton Baths were refurbished. Some of the group looked over the fencing to see that the baths were being utilised by swimmers wearing much skimpier swimwear than was originally proposed.

On passing the Royal Brighton Yacht Club some of us thought that it would have been pleasurable to join the patrons for a G & T on their deck but we accepted that dreams should sometimes remain dreams.

A particular high point was the walk along the beach at Brighton where we passed the many colourful bathing boxes. Colin enjoyed a conversation with one of the owners who was sitting, in very relaxed fashion inside his little beach house. Some of us took the opportunity to take off shoes and socks to paddle in the water as we progressed.

Our path led us away from the beach after this, past the Brighton Beach Hotel along a path via the former train tunnel which in earlier days saw trains passing from Brighton Station, under the road to carry goods and passengers to and from the long gone Brighton Pier.

The track changed significantly after Hampton Beach as we found ourselves following a sandy track through protected remnant beachside vegetation including tea tree, sheoak, banksia and other understory species. In this area a blue tongue lizard slithered off the track causing anxiety to some of our group who thought that they had nearly stepped on a snake.

We reached Sandringham Station soon after 2 p.m. The platform forms end of the line for passengers heading south on this line. The only way to go was to head north, back to via Brighton and the leafy, refined suburbs of Gardenvale, Elsternwick and Ripponlea before continuing on through South Yarra and over the river, into that less reputable suburb of Richmond. (A day of walking through Brighton to Sandringham can affect you like that). We changed trains at Flinders Street Station and soon after we were aboard our train at Southern Cross ready to return to Ballarat.

Thank you to Gordon for leading us on another very enjoyable day-out in Melbourne.

After the photos, there is a link to a video of us going abseiling. Note that where it says X2 it means it is at double speed!