Warrandyte Goldmining Trail - August 2015

A nice colourful way to start the day.

It finally looks like our winter is starting to break a bit, Saturday even held the hope of a bit of blue sky. So, with only a couple of weeks to go before we head to Scotland to walk the West Highland Way I figured I'd better get my hefty bulk off the couch and do a bit of walking. Anxious to crunch out the kilometres which walk would I choose, well I decided to head up to Warrandyte and do the Goldmining Trail, at about 4.5 kilometres I was really pushing the envelope today! So after attending my friend, and old hiking partner Belinda's 1 year old's son Baker's birthday party, I headed off to the trail head, arriving by mid afternoon it was a fairly early start for me.

Starting off up the Bruce Bence Track.

Picking up the Bruce Bence Track I headed up a gully through typical dry Australian bush, topping out in an area of old gold mines, this isn't a park that you would want to do any off track walking as its riddled with old mines. Just a quickly as I had climbed I dropped down to check out the Victory Mine which dates back to 1896, I could basically see the ute from here so I hadn't progressed far. After the Victory Mine finished its serviceable life as a gold mine it was used to dump sewerage by the council, a fairly inglorious way to end its life, thankfully its been cleaned up and restored now.

There were plenty of flowering wattles in evidence today.

Heading down towards Victory Mine through an area of old mine shafts.

Continuing on I headed up Whipstick Gully Track which after turning into Wildcat Gully Track basically bisects the park in a north-south direction. The park was alive with wattles today making for a very colourful walk, although for the life of me I can't do the wattle justice in a photo. Reaching a saddle I headed up Betton Track and to the summit of Fourth Hill, the high point of today's stroll, although there would be no far reaching views from this well vegetated high point. 

The restored Victory Mine which dates back to 1896.

Now I turned off onto what was the most pleasant section of the walk, the Gold Heritage Track. This walking track slowly descended its way down to meet Wildcat Gully Track, on its way passing another couple of mines including Monument Mine which was the last operational mine in the Warrandyte area, only shutting up shop in 1965. The Gold Heritage Track is a well graded walking track which allowed a couple of views through the trees to the surrounding hills, the nearby houses precluding any real feeling of remoteness. 

There was no shortage of mine shafts on the Gold Heritage Track section of the walk.

The Gold Heritage Track.

The houses in the nearby suburbs were occasionally visible through the trees.

After one final section of board walk I popped out of the bush onto the wide Wildcat Gully Track, the sun was now out and it lifted my mood accordingly. Heading down to Anderson's Creek I rock hoped my way across the small stream and headed down to check out the Gold Discovery Memorial Cairn, this is the site of the first discovery of gold in Victoria in 1851. Back tracking now towards Wildcat Track I had a chat with some of the members of the local 'friends' of the park. These 'friends' groups are small community organisations that do great volunteer work in some of the park's around Australia, its a tradition that I hope to participate in when I finish work, this group had been re vegetating the banks of Anderson's Creek.

You'd be braver than me to venture into some of these mines.

The last small section of board walk before I met Wildcat Gully Track.

The Gold Discovery Cairn on Anderson's Creek, this was the spot that gold was first found in Victoria in 1851.

Having crossed the park from north to south I now headed back the other way, the late afternoon sun lighting up the tops of the trees above me as I climbed up Wildcat Gully Track to Geraghty's Tunnel. Geraghty's Tunnel was dug 130 metres into the rock back in the 1800's, you can still head in a few metres to check the tunnel out, although without a head torch I decided against it. Climbing back up to the saddle I once again joined Whipstick Gully Track and descended the somewhat steep and slippery management track through an avenue of wattles back to the ute.

Hey, hey I've finally got some sun.

Climbing back up Wildcat Gully Track.

Geraghty's Tunnel.

All that was left now was to take off my boots and then make the short journey into Warrandyte for a coffee, there are plenty of eating and drinking options in the old town and I will have to come back again with Sam and do a another walk here. Whilst sipping on my coffee I read the notes out of one of my guide books (yeah, it would probably help if I read the notes before I did the walk and not after, but where's the fun in that!), according to my guide book the square mine shafts were dug by European's and the round shafts were dug by Chinese miners. The Chinese dug round shafts or reworked the old European mines into a round shape, so that the devil's wouldn't be able to hide in the corners of the shafts, that's one for the trivia night!

The 'finish' photo.

The Dirt.

The Warrandyte Goldmining Trail is another stroll that isn't exactly a hardcore epic, according to the GPS I walked 4.6 kilometres and climbed 216 metres. The walk crosses a section of Warrandyte State Park from north to south, climbing a little on the way. The climbs are only short but are sometimes steep and in winter some of the tracks are fairly slippery. The walk goes through a lot of typical dry eucalyptus forest and in late winter there is a profussion of wattles. I used the notes out of 'Top Walks in Victoria' by Melanie Ball and also read the notes out of 'Melbourne's Best Bush, Bay and City Walks' by Julie Monday. Either set of notes would be more than adequate to complete the walk. Parks Victoria have plenty of free stuff online as well.

There are plenty of historic buildings to check out in Warrandyte.