Pepsi the golden retriever and Max the German shepherd at the Flinders Peak summit lookout over the You Yangs

trail ✓ Dogs welcome, verified with Parks Victoria Visited by Pepsi & Max

Flinders Peak Walk

3.2 km, moderate walk

Dogs: Welcome
Where: Little River, VIC
Policy checked: 2026-07-26

Pet policy

Dogs welcome on lead throughout You Yangs Regional Park; waste must be taken out with you (Parks Victoria).

The Flinders Peak Walk is the climb to the highest point of the You Yangs, the granite range the Wadawurrung call Wurdi Youang, rising out of the volcanic plains between Melbourne and Geelong. It starts at the Turntable car park and goes up 450 stone steps to a steel viewing platform at the summit, 340m above the plains.

We took Pepsi and Max up on a Tuesday morning in October and had the lookout mostly to ourselves. The park is only an hour from Melbourne, but it does not feel like it: the drive in passes farmland, the gate opens at 7am, and the ranges look like they were dropped onto flat country by mistake.

Pepsi the golden retriever and Max the German shepherd sitting on a granite lookout on the Flinders Peak Walk, looking out over the plains below the You Yangs — The summit lookout over the volcanic plains: Pepsi and Max after the climb

The trailhead sign says 3.5km return, the Parks Victoria guide 3.2km, and either way it is under an hour up at walking pace. The steep rating is honest: most of the climb is stairs, timber and rock then steel mesh, with the last stretch open granite and a hand rail.

Walking it with the dogs

Max and Pepsi sitting on lead beside the Flinders Peak Walk trailhead sign: 3.5 km, 1 hr return, very steep, many steps

Dogs are welcome on lead through the whole park, every track, every day. That is unusually generous so close to Melbourne: no off-lead zones to navigate and no time windows, just keep the lead on from car park to summit and back.

The steps are the thing to think about with a dog. Granite and steel mesh hold heat on warm days, so we felt the rock with the back of a hand before committing Pepsi to the last climb. October was fine.

A summer midday would not be. The bare granite summit has almost no shade, so an early start is the sensible one when the forecast is hot.

Pepsi and Max climbing the granite steps of the Flinders Peak Walk on lead, through open eucalypt woodland

There is no water along the walk, and the only drinking fountain in the park is down at the Park Office near the entrance. Pack enough from home for all three of you before driving up. Bins sit at the trailhead and the waste goes home with you.

Kangaroos and wallabies are common through the park and the dogs read every one of them. Warmer months bring tiger and eastern brown snakes onto the sunny track edges, and visitor accounts mention both regularly, so eyes stay on the path and the lead stays short where the scrub meets the track. Neither pulled on the way up, but the granite is sheer near the top and a dog that lunges at wildlife on a 340m summit is a problem.

Max and Pepsi on lead on the wide gravel section of the Flinders Peak Walk

Mountain bikers share the park's fire roads but not the steps climb. Give the trail junctions below the stairs your attention, where an on-lead dog meets a silent downhill rider.

The view is the point

Pepsi and Max sitting side by side at a rocky lookout facing the farmland plains below the You Yangs

Near the top a side lookout sits over the Bunjil Geoglyph far below. The summit platform is fenced, which matters with dogs on a windy granite top, and the view runs from the You Yangs out across the whole western plain to Geelong, Port Phillip and the Melbourne skyline on a clear day.

Pepsi and Max at the fenced summit lookout of Flinders Peak, with the forested ridges of the You Yangs behind

Max: 450 steps. I counted them. Worth every one.

The name on the mountain

Flinders Peak carries the surveyor's name, but the range itself is Wurdi Youang in Wadawurrung language, big mountain in the middle of the plain, and the summit map marks it that way beside the 340m mark. The 100-metre geoglyph below the lookout shows Bunjil, the wedge-tailed eagle creator figure of the Wadawurrung, carved into the hillside as a permanent acknowledgement of Country.

The park gates close at 8pm in daylight saving and 5pm the rest of the year, and they genuinely lock. One quirk caught us out on the way in: the exit lane carries one-way road spikes that look alarming but drive over cleanly, while the entry lane is spike-free. If you arrive after closing, drive out over the spikes rather than back down the entrance, and if you are still inside after the gates shut, Parks Victoria asks you to call 13 1963.

Making a day of it

Aki sitting between Pepsi and Max at the Flinders Peak summit lookout, looking out over the You Yangs

Turntable car park has toilets, picnic tables and free gas barbecues, and it fills early on clear weekends and holidays, with cars spilling along Turntable Drive when it does. Arrive at opening if you want a spot in the main lot; otherwise the Lower Picnic Area is the official overflow, connected back to Turntable by a 500m link track, and the Big Rock car park is another starting point for a dog walk in the same park.

If you are making a morning of it, the East-West Walk and Branding Yard Trail also start at Turntable, and the Hovells Creek Reserve fenced dog park at Lara is a few minutes off the freeway route home.

It shares its granite-climb character with the other dog walks in Victoria we have covered.