Two Bays Walking Trail

Moderate

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26km trail from Dromana to Cape Schanck across Arthurs Seat State Park and Mornington Peninsula National Park, doable as a 2-day hike, per parks.vic.gov.au.

☰ Trail details

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Distance

3.44 km

Est. time

1 hr 2 min

Elevation gain

102 m

Route type

Point to point

Steepest stretch: +37m over ~300m (around the 0.9km mark)

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In an emergency

Call 000 for police, fire or ambulance — Australia's emergency number works even with a weak signal, and without a SIM if any carrier has coverage.

You're in Mornington Peninsula National Park / Arthurs Seat State Park, Mornington Peninsula, VIC. Mobile reception in this area is not guaranteed — this is exactly why the offline map and GPS position on this page work without signal.

Tell someone your plan and expected return time before you set off. A PLB is the most reliable backup where there's no reception at all.

Tracks & plans

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Species to look for on this trail

Ancient trees and rare flora confirmed in this park. Spot one? Add it as a sighting pin below.

BuckbushDocumented on this trail

Salsola australis

Endangered — VIC: Endangered▾

Endangered — VIC: Endangered

Salsola australis, commonly known as the buckbush, rolypoly, soft rolypoly, or prickly saltwort, and has the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara name Tjilkala is a species of flowering plant in the genus Salsola. And is found in all regions of Australia.

How to spot it

Salsola australis is a small annual spiky plant that grows tall or as a hemisphere from 60 to 100 cm (24 to 39 in) tall. Leaves are 10-30mm long begin cylindrical and bent downwards, becoming hastate with age. Flowers occur singly or in small spikes and are small with free perianth-segments 3-4mm long, and are at first membranous but become cartilaginous. 3-10mm fruit (including 2-5mm horizontal wings) are present from May to October. After seeds ripen plants yellow and seeds are distributed aft

Family Chenopodiaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Buckbush

Photo via iNaturalist Australia (CC-BY-NC 4.0 (Int)), collected by Josie Jones

Sticky WattleDocumented on this trail

Acacia howittii

Vulnerable — VIC: Vulnerable▾

Vulnerable — VIC: Vulnerable

Acacia howittii, commonly known as sticky wattle or Howitt's wattle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae and is endemic to Victoria, Australia. It is a graceful shrub or small tree with pendulous branchlets, narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped phyllodes, spherical heads of pale lemon yellow flowers and narrowly oblong to linear, firmly papery to thinly leathery pods.

How to spot it

Acacia howittii is a graceful shrub or three that typically grows to a height of up to 9 m (30 ft) and it has slender, pendulous branchlets with hairy ribs. Its phyllodes are narrowly elliptic to lance-shaped, usually 15–25 mm (0.59–0.98 in) long, 4–8 mm (0.16–0.31 in) wide, dark green and glabrous with two or three veins on each face. The flowers are borne in one or two spherical heads in axils on peduncles 3–10 mm (0.12–0.39 in) long, each head with 12 to 20 pale lemon yellow flowers. Flowerin

Family Fabaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Sticky Wattle

Frankston SpiderorchidDocumented on this trail

Caladenia robinsonii

Critically Endangered — AUS: Endangered, VIC: Critically Endangered▾

Critically Endangered — AUS: Endangered, VIC: Critically Endangered

Caladenia robinsonii, commonly known as the Frankston spider orchid, is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to Victoria. It is a ground orchid with a single hairy leaf and one or two red and creamy-yellow flowers with dark red glandular tips on the sepals. In 2010 only about forty specimens of this plant, growing in a single population were known.

How to spot it

Caladenia robinsonii is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, herb with an underground tuber. A shoot arises from the tuber each year in the early autumn producing a single hairy leaf in May. The leaf is 80–100 mm (3–4 in) long and 8–10 mm (0.3–0.4 in) wide. In September or October, one or two red and creamy-yellow flowers 30–40 mm (1–2 in) across are produced on a hairy stem 200–300 mm (8–10 in) high. The sepals, but not the petals, have thick, red glandular tips 5–10 mm (0.2–0.4 in) long. The d

Family Orchidaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Caladenia robinsonii

BladderwortDocumented on this trail

Utricularia gibba

Endangered — VIC: Endangered▾

Endangered — VIC: Endangered

Utricularia gibba, commonly known as the humped bladderwort or floating bladderwort, is a small, mat-forming species of carnivorous aquatic bladderwort. It is found on all continents except Antarctica.

How to spot it

Utricularia gibba is an aquatic carnivorous plant that belongs to the genus Utricularia, or bladderworts. The specific epithet gibba is Latin for "hump" or "swelling" – a reference to the inflated base of the lower lip of the corolla. It is a small- to medium-sized aquatic plant that can either be affixed to the substrate in shallow water or free-floating in the water column, however it will likely flower more if supported by a substrate beneath shallow water. It forms mats of criss-crossing, br

Family Lentibulariaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Utricularia gibba

Eastern Spider OrchidDocumented on this trail

Caladenia orientalis

Endangered — AUS: Endangered, VIC: Endangered▾

Endangered — AUS: Endangered, VIC: Endangered

Caladenia orientalis, commonly known as the eastern spider orchid, is a species of orchid endemic to Victoria. It is a ground orchid with a single hairy leaf and one or two creamy-white to yellowish-green flowers and which only grows near the Mornington Peninsula.

How to spot it

Caladenia orientalis is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, herb with a small, spherical, underground tuber and a single leaf, 100–150 mm (4–6 in) long and 10–15 mm (0.4–0.6 in) wide. One or two creamy-white to yellowish-green flowers 70–100 mm (3–4 in) are borne on a stalk 100–200 mm (4–8 in) tall. The sepals and petals taper to thin brown to black tips. The dorsal sepal is erect, 90–120 mm (4–5 in) long, about 3 mm (0.1 in) wide and the lateral sepals are 90–120 mm (4–5 in) long, 4–6 mm (0.16

Family Orchidaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Caladenia orientalis

Photo via iNaturalist Australia (CC-BY-NC 4.0 (Int)), collected by m_orchidhunter

Drooping Sheoak

Allocasuarina verticillata

Flinders Ranges, Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island sheoak▾

Flinders Ranges, Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island sheoak

A small dioecious tree with distinctive drooping, needle-like foliage, occurring across the Flinders Ranges, Gawler Ranges, western Eyre Peninsula and Kangaroo Island. Forms important woodland habitat for glossy black-cockatoos, which feed on its seed cones.

How to spot it

Fine, drooping branchlets to 40cm long with leaves reduced to scale-like teeth in whorls of 9-13, fissured bark, and cylindrical to barrel-shaped seed cones 25-50mm long. Height 4-10m.

Family Casuarinaceae · Source: Allocasuarina verticillata — Wikipedia

KENPEI, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Coast Banksia

Banksia integrifolia

Coastal flagship species▾

Coastal flagship species

One of the four original Banksia species collected by Sir Joseph Banks in 1770, and the dominant flowering tree along much of the Victorian coast. Flowers year-round with a peak in autumn, making it a reliable food source for honeyeaters and other nectar-feeders.

How to spot it

A gnarled, often wind-sculpted tree to 25m with rough grey bark and dark green leaves that flash silvery-white on their undersides in the wind. Pale yellow cylindrical flower spikes 10-12cm tall stand upright at branch tips. Common on the dunes and headlands of Wilsons Promontory, Cape Conran, Croajingolong, Discovery Bay and the Mornington Peninsula.

Family Proteaceae · Source: Wikipedia: Banksia integrifolia

Photo: Krzysztof Golik (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Cushion Bush

Leucophyta brownii

Coastal cliff and dune daisy-shrub▾

Coastal cliff and dune daisy-shrub

A silvery, rounded daisy-family shrub endemic to Australia's southern coastline, tough enough to handle sea spray, wind, drought and frost on exposed cliffs and dunes. Wikipedia records it along coastal Victoria including the Mornington Peninsula and Sorrento, and it is documented growing at Cape Schanck, one of the four sections of Mornington Peninsula National Park.

How to spot it

A small, tangled, silvery-grey rounded shrub to about 0.7m, its tomentose (densely woolly) branchlets giving it an almost felted, ghostly look against dark cliff rock. Small white-yellow globular flowerheads about 1cm across appear in summer. Look for it clinging to exposed cliff faces and dune edges along the Coast Walk and around Cape Schanck.

Family Asteraceae · Source: Wikipedia: Leucophyta brownii

Photo: gerard (Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0) via Wikimedia Commons

Leafy Twig-Rush

Cladium procerum

Endangered — VIC: Endangered, SA: Rare, WA: Data Deficient▾

Endangered — VIC: Endangered, SA: Rare, WA: Data Deficient

Cladium procerum, known commonly as the leafy twigrush, is a species of flowering plant in the sedge family. It is found mostly in swampland and on the margins of lakes. It grows up to 2.5 m tall. It was described by Stanley Thatcher Blake in 1943.

How to spot it

Real occurrence confirmed near Mornington Peninsula National Park (Atlas of Living Australia, 2025) — no separate physical description was available on Wikipedia for this species, see the source link for more.

Family Cyperaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Cladium procerum

Coast Twinleaf

Roepera billardierei

Endangered — VIC: Endangered▾

Endangered — VIC: Endangered

Roepera billardierei, synonym Zygophyllum billardierei, commonly known as coast twin-leaf, is a species of plant in the family Zygophyllaceae found in temperate regions of Australia. In Tasmania, where it has only been recorded from the Furneaux Group in Bass Strait, it is listed as Rare under the state's Threatened Species Protection Act 1995.

How to spot it

Coast twin-leaf is a perennial herb with stems that spread over the ground. The stems are branched and 20–40 millimetres [mm] (0.79–1.57 in) long. The leaves are Y-shaped, with blunt tips, and up to 15 mm (0.59 in) long. The flowers are yellow and about 10 mm (0.39 in) long. The fruit is a drooping four-angled capsule about 10–12 mm (0.39–0.47 in) long, containing brown seeds. It is a scrambling plant which is found in both sheltered and exposed coastal sites where it stabilises loose sand on du

Family Zygophyllaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Roepera billardierei

Photo via iNaturalist Australia (CC-BY-NC 4.0 (Int)), collected by jacksampson1

Coast Bitter-Bush

Adriana quadripartita

Endangered — VIC: Endangered▾

Endangered — VIC: Endangered

Adriana quadripartita, the bitter bush, is a shrub in the family Euphorbiaceae. The species, which is endemic to southern Australia, has an erect open habit, growing to between 0.5 and 3 metres or more high.

How to spot it

Real occurrence confirmed near Mornington Peninsula National Park (Atlas of Living Australia, 2013) — no separate physical description was available on Wikipedia for this species, see the source link for more.

Family Euphorbiaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Adriana quadripartita

Dune Wood-Sorrel

Oxalis rubens

Endangered — VIC: Endangered▾

Endangered — VIC: Endangered

Oxalis rubens is a small herbaceous plant found in coastal areas of Australia and New Zealand. Branches are erect or ascending, up to 35 cm long, of a dull red-brown colour. The specific epithet rubens is derived from Latin, meaning reddish in colour.

How to spot it

Real occurrence confirmed near Mornington Peninsula National Park (Atlas of Living Australia, 2016) — no separate physical description was available on Wikipedia for this species, see the source link for more.

Family Oxalidaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Oxalis rubens

Common Apple-Berry

Billardiera scandens

Endangered — VIC: Endangered, SA: Rare▾

Endangered — VIC: Endangered, SA: Rare

Billardiera scandens, commonly known as hairy apple berry or common apple-berry, is a small shrub or twining plant of the Pittosporaceae family which occurs in forests in the coastal and tableland areas of all states and territories in Australia, apart from the Northern Territory and Western Australia. It has a silky touch and appearance that becomes more brittle as the dense growth matures. The inflorescence consists of single or paired yellow flowers, pink-tinged yellow sepals and bright yellow petals and is attached to a hairy drooping peduncle. The summer flush produces fruit of oblong berries up to 30 mm long, initially green in colour and covered in fine hair - somewhat akin to a tiny kiwifruit in appearance.

How to spot it

Real occurrence confirmed near Mornington Peninsula National Park (Atlas of Living Australia, 2001) — no separate physical description was available on Wikipedia for this species, see the source link for more.

Family Pittosporaceae · Source: Atlas of Living Australia + Wikipedia: Billardiera scandens