Mordialloc to Beaumaris foreshore walk
- Begin at the pier, construction of which commenced in 1869. Site also of the Carnival which raised money to build the promemade and band stand. Mordialloc Sea Baths were demolished in the severe storm of 1934.
- In the Peter Scullin Reserve there is memorial to the Bunurong tribe. This is also the site of the first white settler’s farm and later the first Mordialloc football ground.
- Walk along the promenade until the Bay Street car park is reached. This was the traditional site for swimming race-horses from the Epsom training track. A bronze horse now marks this spot.
- Proceed to the former Parkdale Lifesaving Club house, now a popular café. Enjoy a cup of coffee and watch out for blue wrens in the bushes.
- Continue along the cliff top track or walk along the concrete path on the sand to the promenade at Parkdale Yacht club. Sustenance workers commenced construction of the sea wall and promenade during the depression years.
- On the cliff top between Dixon Street and the Mentone Lifesaving Club is a significant area of foreshore – Red Bluff Heathland with a Trim Greenhood Orchid colony. The gravel track winds through 77 year-old tea-trees.
- The Mentone Clay Cliffs consist of poorly consolidated yellow-brown clay Red Bluff sands. These sands were badly eroded and regraded by the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1972-73.
- Cliffs and adjoining beaches were painted by Australian impressionists and, later, Clarice Beckett (1887-1935). Beckett painted from Beaumaris looking across to Mentone. She also painted bathing boxes and boatsheds later destroyed during the 1934 storm.
- The prominent red sandstone cliffs at Beaumaris is the only Australian suburban site where fossils of terrestial mammals occur with abundant marine invertibrates. The richest finds of fossil penguins in Australia were made here and important discoveries are still being made.
- Continue along the track to Table Rock, an historic location for aborigines which once included middens and a fresh water well. Watching swans and pelicans with a cup of tea at Rickett’s Point would be a pleasant end to the walk.