Acces
- Start/finish: Camels Hump’s parking lot on Cameron Drive, called MacDonald Reservoir on the park leaflet. Alternatively, you can start from McGregors Picnic Ground where the parking lot is bigger. Around 70 km North West from Melbourne.
- By public transport: you can catch the train until Mount Macedon from Melbourne (lines Bendigo-Melbourne via Sundbury and Echuca/Moama-Melbourne via Bendigo or Heathcote) but you’re gonna walk around 10 km to join the start of the hike.
Track
Begin by climbing 450 metres on Camels Hump Track.
Take the MRWT path which starts on Camels Hump carpark. It brings you to Days Picnic Ground then to Sanatorium Lake around which you can walk (350 metres long). The signs tell you that you can see koalas in the eucalyptus but even though we craned our necks, we saw no furry marsupials.
After going through Barringo Road, you go onto Zig Zag Track by passing a barrier which is open during dry days to let go for wheel drive vehicles. We can’t say if there is usually a lot of traffic, the road was closed when we were there.
Zig Zag Track is, as the name suggests, full of zigzags and it’s in the last one that you will find a path on your right to join Moola Track. Open your eyes, the crossing is very narrow and not obvious, a simple arrow on a trunk indicates that the track begins there.
Moola Track is not maintained, we had to climb some fallen trees and make detours to bypass obstacles. It is clearly not used anymore but it is still indicated on maps. Fortunately, you walk it only 700 meters before joining Barringo Road. And it’s a change from the wide and cleared tracks from the start !
Take Barringo Road on the left, you can go back to the carpark by following it (not very frequented by vehicles) or by taking the MRWT again, it’s a bit nicer.
Opinion
Our hiking guidebook (40 Great Walks in Australia from Tyrone Thomas) described a loop longer than what we did, but after noticing it was mainly 4WD tracks and roads, we decided to walk mainly on walking paths and so to reduce the distance.
Sanatorium Lake is a water reservoir which was designed to give water to a sanatorium for people with tuberculosis but it was open only for ten years at the beginning of the 20th century.
The walk is not great but far from being unpleasant. Wide tracks such as 4WD ones are not what I like the most and the walk is 90% with these. The view from Camels Hump is not stunning but the weather was not favourable for this, on this day.
- Pros: the nice and inimitable smell of eucalyptus, the (relative) proximity with Melbourne.
- Cons: wide and not natural tracks.