Royal Park is a 170-hectare reserve on the northern edge of the Melbourne CBD, two-thirds of which is left as bush — mostly Eucalyptus camaldulensis, the river red gum, and Corymbia maculata, the spotted gum, with a thicker understorey of Acacia melanoxylon and wattles along the watercourses. The perimeter trail loops the park in a flat six kilometers and stays under canopy for most of its length. Unlike the Botanic Gardens to the south, which is European-planted and heavily watered, Royal Park is native-vegetation forward and tolerates the Melbourne summer drought; the shade is real, not thin.
The picks below are the loop in segments, plus a pair of cross-park cut-throughs. They are graded for the late afternoon — Melbourne’s peak summer heat hits around 4 PM, when the northerly wind has been blowing across the city for hours and the asphalt is at its hottest, and the gum cover plus the breeze off Princes Park lowers the felt temperature meaningfully. A practical note: the section near the zoo is busy; the western perimeter, between Royal Park Station and the nature playground, is the quietest stretch.