Distillery Creek Picnic Area

Distillery Creek Picnic Area is a pair of picnic clearings in dry ironbark forest inland from Aireys Inlet, reached from Bambra Road. The lower and upper grounds are across the road from one another. Both have picnic tables and wood-fired barbecues; the upper ground also has toilets. Dogs are allowed on leash. Start at the lower ground for the signed nature loop.

The Distillery Creek Nature Trail is an easy 1.5 km circuit that takes about 45 minutes. Interpretive signs and QR codes explain the area, with a few seats along the way. There’s a creekside viewing spot and a short boardwalk through damper ground. The creek is often dry, so think of this as a forest walk rather than a waterfall stop.

Late winter and spring bring yellow wattles, white flowering shrubs and starwort, and tall greenhood orchids, including the rarer brown-tipped greenhood. Around the picnic-ground waterhole, look for honeyeaters, superb fairy-wrens, eastern yellow robins and grey fantails. Notice the grey-brown, furrowed ironbarks beside blackened trunks left by the 1983 bushfires.