U3A Ballarat Hikers

 U3A Hike No 411 Hike Report and photos by Michelle McGillivray While the early morning was cold, it became a delightful day for a walk in the forest. Cool, dry, still and beautiful. It certainly beats staying home in bed.   A special welcome to new walkers Greg and Maureen.   After car-pooling and a quick car shuffle, we started south of Merrimu Reservoir and walked west to Pyrites Creek. Mark, our leader for the day, decided to avoid “Steep Track” and instead turned south along the Coimadai Track. We still managed to hike many hills and mixed terrain, making it an interesting and varied walk. We kept our wits about us on the steep rocky climbs and descents.   Trekking on the eastern edge of Pyrites Creek was beautiful and serene, with mixed vegetation, birdsong and evidence of wombats making their home in the forest. Some of us could not resist exploring the inviting burrows.   We walked by the remnants of a cottage set beautifully on a hillside overlookin...

 U3A Hike No 410 Hike Report by Anne O Nine fearless hikers m et at Kirks to carpool and travel to Hepburn Mineral Springs Reserve .  With 10-25 mm of rain predicted, the most common comment was “We must be mad!” As it turned out we were lucky, with lightly spitting rain the worst we experienced. Andrew had already decided to shorten the walk to avoid the heavier falls likely to come late morning. This worked well as the rain started to intensify just as we reached the carpark at the end of the walk. A short distance from the start , t he walk passed Wyuna Springs , then followed Wild Cat Gully to Argyle Mineral Springs. We passed a couple of mine adits . New signage along the way, attractive seating areas and carvings of native plants and animals showed that some money had been spent on this section of the track. Much of the walk followed rocky walking tracks and we needed to concentrate on where we placed our feet. A well-placed tree saved one hiker from a slide do...

 U3A Hike No 409 Hike Report by Lyn Hooper WOW is the word I would use to describe this hike. WOW - The Weather - It was incredible for a winter's morning. As we headed down the highway towards Ballan, the sun was shining with lots of clear blue sky and for this time of the year not too chilly. ( What a difference a week makes!! ) WOW - The Hike - It consisted of two parts (3.8 km and 4 km respectively). The first part was a visit to Falcon's Lookout. Leaving the cars at the Ironbark Gorge carpark we headed down the path into a shady gully concentrating on our foot placement as the track, rocks and logs were all wet and slippery. However needless to say there was constant chatter as Leona and Geoff had just returned from their trip and we were all eager to hear about their exploits.  Then, as with most downhills there was an uphill. As we were nearing the ridge sunlight dappled through the trees. Just before the lookout we took a short side trip to enjoy the vista over farmlan...