Day Walks Victoria

Second edition, 192 pages, 129 colour photographs, 40 colour topographic maps, ISBN 978 1 920995 10 2   Describes 40 walking areas around Victoria with a total of 96 walk variationss. For each walking area, one walk is described in detail and a series of variations based on the main walk are also given if appropriate. Areas covered range from Portland, Grampians, Enfield Forest, Cape Otway, Aireys Inlet, Angelsea, Daylesford, Swan Bay, Point Cooke, Gellibrand Hill, Mt Macedon, Brisbane Ranges, Lysterfield & Churchill Parks, Dandenongs, Cape Schanck, Phillip Island, Mt St Leonard, Fraser National Park, Mt Baw Baw, Alpine National Park and others. For those based in Melbourne, 23 of the walking areas are within day walk distance of Melbourne.   Since the first edition was published, Victoria has experienced several huge bush fires and floods. Some walking areas were severely effected and are still closed to walkers. The result is we had to make many changes and deleted a number of walking areas from the book. We replaced these with 7 new walks, for another 6 major changes to the walking route were needed while for another 4 we reversed the walk direction to make it easier to follow the walk as some track junctions are no longer obvious. At the time of going to print, the Wonderland Range in the Grampians was recently closed due to flood damage - we decided to leave the walks in as parks staff are working on the walks, one section is already open and all should eventually reopen and we expect there will be minimal changes to the routes for these walks, any major changes will be noted on our update page.   Walks range from 6.2 to 21.4km in length. Grades range from Easy to Hard and the grading is similar to that used by most walking clubs in Victoria hence there is something for everybody. While many of the Easy walks are suitable for families, at the other end of difficulty some of the Hard walks include off-track sections and are intended for experienced walkers.   The book is a full colour production with colour topographic maps. Map sizes range from half page to 1 and a half pages for each walk and standard metric scales are used, 1:25,000 or 1:50,000. The guide also includes a 2 page key map of Victoria and a 6 page Walk Index designed to assist with selecting a walk.   One innovation over many books is the inclusion of gradient profiles showing climbs and descents - other publishers have since copied the idea. Unlike other books, all our profiles are produced at the same scale throughout the book enabling easy comparison between different walks. All profiles also all start from sea level thus making it easy to visualise the overall elevation of each walk.