The Great Dividing Trail Network is comprised of more than 300km of interlinked trails for walking and bike riding. The original section of track, known as the Goldfields Track, is the longest shared use track in Victoria.
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The beginning
The idea behind the Great Dividing Trail Network was first thought of by Barry Golding, who was also the first president.
Mr Golding had a dream of connecting the forest through public land.
At 210km in length, the Goldfields Track is made up of four interlinked tracks between Mt Buninyong and Bendigo. It even comprises of a small track out in Ararat, although it does not connect to the trail as a whole.
The network also comprises of the recently added Lerderderg Track, which was added more recently.
Great Dividing Trail Committee Member, Gib Wettenhall, said the group had always tried to build on existing tracks.
“This is an area which has had a huge amount of people from the gold rush… If you walk within a kilometre, you’re going to find a track,” he said.
The management
The Great Dividing Trail Association is currently moving to collaborate on a much greater scale with all of its managers.
“When I first started, people would run along and tie plastic bags to trees to work out the routes,” Mr Wettenhall said.
“When the Goldfields Track was first set up, it was managed by a bunch of volunteers. Our surveyor, Bill Casey, has always been involved in surveying and setting up the tracks.
“But eventually it all got beyond us and we started negotiating with the land managers,” he said.
The association works in collaboration with Parks Victoria and the Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning.
“We’ve got a very good relationship with the Parks Victoria office in Creswick. We launched the Creswick Heritage Walk at the end of last year.
“We’ve made quite a lot of money from selling our maps and guidebooks, which has allowed us to continue putting up more signposts and display boards and to provide 5000 of those pamphlets to the visitors centre,” he said.
Parks Victoria’s Regional Park Ranger in Creswick, Mark Bourke, said the Great Dividing Trail Association had been fantastic to work with.
“Quite often we get people going into parks and doing their own works. For us, that means we may have a liability regarding their safety and damage to the environment.
“These guys have been fantastic and always lets us know when they are about to do works and always do the relevant paperwork.
“They are a very active group and get out there to help to maintain the track. They let us know when there’s work to be done and we let them know when there’s work to be done, which is great because there are more and more people walking the tracks around Creswick and living a healthy lifestyle, which is what we try to promote.
“We are very happy with our partnership,” he said.
The maintenance
Parks Victoria’s number one priority is biodiversity and ensuring the number of people trekking the trails do not damage the environment.
Mr Bourke said Parks Victoria is trying to make walkers and bikers more conscious of what they’re bringing into the park.
“We have a policy of what you bring into the parks, you take back out again,” he said.
“The rubbish can be a bit of an issue because we are dealing with regional parks here that are close to residential centres.”
Parks Victoria generally goes through a season of brush cutting, look at any safety issues in regards to steps and bridge crossings and take care of weed maintenance along the tracks.
They also look after the mineral springs and other heritage attractions.
Bill Casey said the GDTA also look at what needs to be done, but as they don’t use power tools, they generally focus on signage and posting.
On average, he said there are four posts per kilometre, meaning there are over 1000 posts.
He said vandalism was a problem with some people going into the forest and either stealing or destroying their posts and signage, although this was decreasing.
The connection
Apart from connecting existing tracks, the other major idea behind the establishment of the trail network was to connect features.
Another committee member, Ed Butler, said the idea was to connect transport centres.
“We picked places with railway stations so you could get to the track, walk it and get home without using private vehicles,” he said.
Mr Wettenhall said the trails help to connect people with nature and Victoria’s rich cultural heritage and history.
The track takes walkers and riders through a vast range of features of cultural heritage, from Indigenous heritage, to the gold rush, built heritage, Chinese heritage, the mineral springs, timber mills and old railways.
“You can still see the remains of the saw pits, the rail lines, the mines and whole dry creek valleys,” he said.
“The Goldfields track is definitely unique because this area has such a high cultural heritage. Most tracks, when you think about it, are based on natural beauty and experience. But here, it is all re-growth forest. Wherever you go, you are going over somebody’s past.”
The future
Mr Wettenhall said the beauty of the Great Dividing Trail Network was that the trails were all connected.
“Our slogan is linking treasures, culturally and through natural experiences. It’s not just a single line of track. There is no reason why we couldn’t go on to Melbourne in the future.”
The group is currently looking at incorporating the Campaspe trail into its network, which will be 42 km long.
“Hopefully, we will soon have close to 350km of track, if you include the 12km in Ararat,” he said.