My discovery of the Warrenheip Creek on my walk up Hummfray Street had intrigued me. Looking at a map of the area I saw that it flowed into the Yarrowee Creek behind the Brown Hill Pub not far north of the street. The creek flows northwards, apparently from the region of Mount Warrenheip to join with the Yarrowee and I thought it would be interesting to find where it flowed. Not taking my camera, I previously walked up Old Melbourne Road to see where the Warrenheip Creek flowed under the road and found that it flows further north along an easement behind a new housing development, but only as far as the development extends before the path is blocked by a large paddock. I could see, on the other side of the paddock, more developments and what looked to be a continuation of the easement through which the creek continued to flow northwards towards the Yarrowee.
This is not a walk I had done before. I had thought that one day I might take the walk along the Yarrowee Creek to the east rather than my other walk to the east towards the center of town, but had not got around to it. I have walked up Water Street on several occasions, but not as far as its crossing of the Warrenheip Creek. My search for the continuation of the Warrenheip Creek prompted me to think of joining up the two possible walks, and that is what I did.
It turned out I was right, that the new housing developments off Water Street to the south have created an easement that makes it possible to walk alongside the creek until the path is blocked by the paddock I had previously approached from the other side. No doubt that land will be developed for housing one of these days and the easement thus created will make it possible to walk along the Warrenheip Creek from Old Melbourne Road north towards the Yarrowee. What I did not anticipate is that the short distance that the Warrenheip Creek flows between Water Street and Humffray Street may be private property. There appears to be no permanent path way and in theory the way is blocked at the Humffray Street end by a fence which has fallen down or been pulled down some time ago, making access possible.
The prepared path begins on the other side of Humffray Street and follows the flow of the creek a short distance before joining the Yarrowee. From there paths run to the north towards the freeway or to the west to follow the Yarrowee as it flows through some picturesque ponds and wetlands, before coming to the continuation of Stawell Street that runs up behind Black Hill to North Ballarat. From there it is a relatively short walk down to the intersection with Humffray Street, along the side of Russell Square, over the Stawell Street footbridge, across Victoria Street and home.
I did this walk early on a weekend day. As a result there were more people than usual using the path, particularly along the picturesque length of the Yarrowee track. On the other side of the creek, on the Brown Hill reserve. there was a cricket match being played, but I was too far from it to be tempted to stop and watch the play for a while.
Leigh Edmonds little box of stuff 