Hepburn Shire Council mayor John Cottrell will launch the new Creswick Heritage Walk on Monday. The walk follows an 8.5 kilometre circuit displaying some of the best of the town’s cultural heritage and natural beauty. 

It was the leading route change made in recent years to the popular Goldfields Track, and provides an improved exit route, which is designed to stop track users bypassing the town.

Riders and walkers will also celebrate the launch of the new Goldfields Track Walk or Ride Guide on Monday by riding to meet mayors of towns along the 210km Goldfields Track from Ballarat to Creswick, Castlemaine and Bendigo.  

The new guide will for the first time cater for both walkers and mountain bike riders.

The first edition of the walking guide won a community history award for its in-depth coverage of cultural heritage and reading the landscape, but Goldfields Track Inc. chair Peter Skilbeck said the new second edition “raises the bar to new heights”. “It has totally revised maps and track notes, and new essays from local experts,” Mr Skilbeck said. 

Great Dividing Trail Association president Gib Wettenhall said the association’s partnership with Goldfields Track Inc. has brought the Le Gerche trail into the Goldfields Track.

“It’s taken a while, but we have now linked a number of Creswick’s jewels into one circuit walk, where formerly they could only be separately visited and then only by car.”