Silver Creek Circuit Kinglake Hike (13.5km)

From the ridges above Melbourne, Kinglake National Park holds a broad sweep of mountain forest, fern-lined gullies and sheltered creek valleys on the southern slopes of the Great Dividing Range. It sits close enough to the city to feel like part of Melbourne's wider hinterland, yet the country itself is distinctly upland, with cooler, wetter forests and long views across the Yarra Valley and out towards Port Phillip Bay. That contrast between metropolitan edge and substantial bushland is central to the park's character.

The park protects a large area of foothill and mountain forest within the Yarra and Goulburn catchments, including the Wallaby Creek catchment in its north-west. Water is part of the region's story in more than one way: creeks rise in these forested slopes, the gullies stay moist and shaded, and some sections feed Melbourne's water supply system. Around Masons Falls, the landscape also reveals something older beneath the trees, where water drops over exposed mudstone that formed on an ancient sea floor.

Ecologically, this is a varied piece of the Central Highlands rather than a single uniform forest block. Wet forest with Mountain Ash occurs in the higher, more protected country, while other slopes and ridgelines carry different eucalypt communities shaped by aspect, rainfall and soil. Kinglake National Park is especially important because it retains plants and animals that were once more widespread through the Yarra Valley and nearby foothills before those lower areas were cleared or urbanised. The result is a park with strong birdlife, dense understorey in the gullies, and a noticeably different feel from the drier bushland closer to Melbourne.

Fire is also inseparable from any understanding of this landscape. In February 2009, more than 96 per cent of the park was burnt during the Black Saturday fires, an event that scarred both the forest and surrounding communities. What stands there now is a recovering landscape, where regrowth is part of what walkers see. The park also contains many Aboriginal archaeological sites, reflecting long-standing connections to this country, in an area where Wurundjeri and Taungurung people are both recorded in the historical management material for the park.