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  • Length: 35km

  • Duration: 3 days

  • Grade: 3

  • Style: One Way

  • Start: Steiglitz Courthouse

  • End: Boar Gully Camping Area

  • Location: Brisbane Ranges National Park

  • Closest Town: Steiglitz

  • Distance from CBD: 86km

  • State: VIC

  • Latitude: -37.8592070000

  • Longitude: 144.1903230000

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The Burchell Trail is a 35km, grade 3 one way hike located in the Brisbane Ranges National Park, Victoria. The hike should take approximately 3 days to complete.

Summary

The Burchell Trail is a great way to see the Brisbane Ranges National Park as it traverses the length of the park from north to south. Starting from either Fridays or Boar Gully, the walk follows orange track markers and uses existing walks, management tracks and public roads. The Burchell Trail is a linear trail that can be completed over 3 relatively short days. If there was a centrally located camping spot I would complete this hike it in only two days.

For the more adventurous, the Burchell Trail is a great way to see the Brisbane Ranges National Park. Starting from Fridays Camping Ground or Boar Gully Camping Ground, the walk follows orange track markers and uses existing walks, management tracks and public roads. Overnight camps are located at the Old Mill and Little River Bush Camping Grounds.

North South, commencing at Board Gully
Day 1 – Boar Gully to Little River – 10km
Day 2 – Little River to Old Mill – 13.5km
Day 3 – Old Mill to Fridays – 11.5km

South to North, commencing at Board Gully
Day 1 – Fridays to Old Mill – 11.5km
Day 2 – Old Mill to Little River – 13.5km
Day 3 – Little River to Boar Gully – 10km

Overnight hike for kids

This makes an excellent mulit-day hike for kids as each day is not too long, the terrain is generally flat or gently sloping with only a small amount of elevation gain on the climbs.

Camping

There are two designated public access camping grounds in the park €” Boar Gully (with six sites) in the north and Fridays (with ten sites) near Steiglitz. Both have pit toilets and tank water, plus designated camp trailer or caravan sites at each camp ground. The Overnight Hikers Only sites are located at The Old Mill and the Little River Picnic and camping Area. Bookings are required for all campsites including the Overnight Hikers Only sites along the Burchell Trail. Camping fees apply. For further information or to book go to www.parks.vic.gov.au/stay

About the region

Little more than an hour’s drive from Melbourne takes you to the state’s richest wildflower habitat. Set in a low range of mountains dissected by rocky gullies, the unusual geology of Brisbane Ranges National Park has preserved plants that have long since vanished from the region, together with a correspondingly diverse bird population and the greatest density of koalas in Victoria.

Total distance: 34707 m
Max elevation: 439 m
Min elevation: 249 m
Total climbing: 1017 m
Total descent: -932 m
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Mount Cobberas Circuit (15.1km)

7 thoughts on “The Burchell Trail (35km)”

  1. My very first overnight hike was Day 1 of this trail. Nice scenery, but nothing special. A few challenging hills for someone carrying camp for the first time, but it was comfortable. The camp, Old Mill, is sheltered, pretty and has fallen wood easy to carry to the fire. Given this was our first trial at trekking, morning brought an easy 2km walk back to the car via the roads. I will do this again and I will do the whole trail 🙂

    1. It’s very easy to make the first day, south to north, a circuit. Leave from Fridays campground and follow the Burchell to the Old Mill camp. This is about 3 hrs, give or take for your fitness. Then follow the Burchell trail briefly to Pine track. Turn off and walk 2k back to Fridays on the road. Very simple overnighter or daywalk. Mostly pretty flat walking.

  2. Two fellow hikers and I completed this trail – end to end, south to north – over the weekend. We did the old ‘a car at each end’ trick so we could do the entire trail. It is an amazing walk given its proximity to the city of Melbourne. Very challenging descents, especially the shale-strewn hillsides on the Little River campground to Boar Gully campground section. The bush is lovely and absolutely chockers with fauna – roos, wallabies and an abundance of birds (and a bonus rather fast-moving red-bellied black snake in one of the creeks). One highlight was the joy of seeing an echidna on the second day. Really neat and quiet camp sites in sheltered gorges. Note: water was not available at the campsites (contrary to what the Parks Victoria map indicates). We filtered water out of the of the creek a few hundred metres from the Little River camp ground (I suspect you could do the same at the Stony CVreek camp ground).

  4. Three adults, four kids 10 – 12 yrs old, our first overnight hike, we had a ball.
    We made a water drop at Gellong – Ballan Rd off of the trail as we did the shuttle for a car at each end of the trail.
    Whilst there was water at both camp grounds in the tanks it was great to know we had two 10 litre bladders waiting for us at the halfway mark.

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