Kalorama Park sign.
This is a large park. It can be surveyed from the lookout at Five Ways with Silvan Reservoir in the distance.
View from the lookout. Silvan Reservoir in background and the top picnic shelter in middle ground.
You can enter the park from Barbers Road which is next to the lookout car park. There are two car parks and two picnic shelters, both with BBQs and a toilet block.
The lower picnic shelter.
There is a walking track trough the forested part of the park.
The path from the picnic area to the forest.
I would call it a tree fern walk as you pass by and under hundreds of tree ferns.
A fern fan.
You also pass by magnificent stands of very tall mountain ash trees.
Tall timber.
Soon after entering the forest, and it is a forest, a warning sign asks you to stay on the tracks and that the surface can be steep and slippery. Definitely not for the unfit.
Good and accurate advice.
The path is not steep, it is very steep, both upwards and downwards. In wet weather the steep sections would be extremely slippery.
It's steep, but not the steepest.
The paths are narrow but mostly smooth. It is completely silent, apart from one small section where the sound of rushing water builds excitement until the sounds are revealed as the muffled sound of traffic on the nearby Mt. Dandenong Tourist Road.
The path continues.
After about one kilometre the path opens up to a small car parking area, which is at the end of Jeeves Avenue, a no through road off the tourist road.
A couple and their dog dwarfed by the tall timber.
I retraced my steps looking for another path to complete a circuit. It was not found so I back-tracked the whole way.
Something at every turn.
The only bird I saw was a beautiful crimson rosella, although kookaburras were heard in the distance.
The crimson rosella.
As well as looking up, it pays to look down as well. I'm glad I did as I spied a large fungi specimen nicely camouflaged among the forest litter.
The large fungi specimen.
Overhanging the path was a quite colourful native grass stalk, the colour standing out against the green surrounds.
The attractive grass stalk.
A splash of red caught my eye and camera. It was a couple bunches of hanging flowers from a spindly shrub.
Hanging red.
My walk was on a very warm Sunday afternoon and both picnic shelters were doing a roaring trade.
Full house.
I met several other people and one dog on my walk, although on a weekday you would be alone.
Can get busy.
Downhill from the lower picnic area steep grassy slopes with a few trees was the topographical outlook. Under several of those trees couples and family groups were enjoying the shade.
Perfect. A rug, shade and company.
A family occasion.
Walking the green slopes occasionally revealed small clumps of a delicate pink flowers.
Small pink flowers.
Nice coloured trunk.
The forest walk is not for the faint-hearted, but the green grassy slopes and picnic shelters are.
