Situated 45kms West North West from Melbourne CBD, in the Long Forest Flora & Fauna Reserve, between Melton and Bacchus Marsh.
The drive is via Western Hwy (M8) and get off the M8 at Hopetoun Park signpost. Turn right on Hopetown Park Road, cross the Old Western Hwy to get on to the Long Forest Road, and drive a further 2-3kms to the reserve car park in which there is an information shelter with map and a signpost leading to the Happy Valley Track.
No toilets or rubbish bins are provided. Take your rubbish home.
The Walk:
The Happy Valley Track (~2 km) is a wide, dry and well-maintained track. The official track ends at the junction of the Coimadai Creek Trail on the east bank of the Coimadai Creek (was called the Pyrites Creek until recently). At the junction of the two tracks, the Old Happy Valley Track continues across the Coimadai/Pyrites Creek and then follows the creek north on the west bank for about 4kms. Meanwhile the Coimadai Creek Trail follows the east bank of the creek for about 1km and then the old Happy Valley Track crosses the Coimadai/Pyrites Creek and rejoins the Coimadai Creek Trail and continues north to the Coimadai Track junction.
Because of this mix-up in the track and creek names, we first walked from the Long Forest carpark down the official Happy Valley Track to the junction, then walked up the Coimadai Creek Trail about half way, made a wrong turn, up an unnamed track, and then realised we were not following the older Garmin/OSM/Alltrails route we had taken as our track guide and turned back to retrace our track to the Happy Valley Track end and then followed the Old Happy Valley Track route onto the west bank, as the Garmin Topo map. As this deprecated track is no longer maintained, it did require good navigation skills to follow it to where the track recrosses the Coimadai/Pyrites Creek back onto the Coimadai Creek Trail and then we continued north to the trail's end. After lunch we turned back and followed the Coimadai Creek Trail and Official Happy Valley Track back to the carpark.
Lunch near the Coimadai Creek Trail and Comadai Track junction
Note the "official" version of this walk is available on the Parks Victoria website and through Avenza Maps.
However this "official" track route and naming disagrees with almost all other sources of track navigation in this area. If you wish to have a simple walk then follow the Parks and Wildlife map. If you want a bush-bashing navigation adventure then follow the tracks given on almost all other bushwalk navigation sites.
Traffic on West Gate Bridge.
