U3A Ballarat Hikers

U3A Hike No 94 Hike Report by Ian Egerton The walk was a circuit which started in light rain and finished with a clear sky at the Vaughan Springs picnic ground on the Loddon River and followed sections of the Goldfields Track, which is well signposted, although we also went off-track along a couple of ridges and then along Sebastapol Creek through light scrub. Features along the way included the Tubal Cain Mine, which had quite a ‘tall’ Cornish chimney running ingeniously up the slope of the hill; and a cavelike adit running into a hillside with a deceased kangaroo inside the entrance (we didn’t dare go any further!), and a large mullock heap out front. The track also passed through a number of areas dotted with old gold-diggings pits, others with extensive scatterings of quartz, as well as the odd section of water race and associated dams. We saw the remains of a number of stone buildings, many with just the chimney left standing. The ‘Big Chimney’ was the largest of these

U3A Hike No 93 Hike Report by Joan Brick With a large group of eager hikers ready for the days adventure, we began with a car shuffle from Kirks Reservoir to Dean and finally   to Creswick.    We headed through the grounds of the School of Forestry making our mark by taking a group photo in front of the main building   which seemed to set off a few bells and alarms which really didn’t seem   to concern the locals.    Once on the Wallaby track we were introduced to the art work that appears on the track in the form of decorated mosaic tiles laid on the path,  painted totem poles and iron sculptures with a series of picturesque dams in the background.    We ventured into the Le Gerche Forest Walk which has been newly incorporated into the Wallaby track.   This was   a special part of the walk where we were able to appreciate the efforts of Le Gerche   in   reforestation of this area due to the   detrimental effects   suffered from the goldmining era and illegal removal of

U3A Hike No 92 Hike Report by Geoff Howard Eleven hikers met at Delacombe Town Centre on a cool morning pleased to find that, by the time we reached Smythesdale the weather had settled to provide a very pleasant walking day.   Gordon led us to Argyle Dam in the Surface Hill Reserve and from there we walked along parts of the extensive water race system constructed during the sluice mining era (1860’s to around 1900). Starting from Argyle dam we followed along the roughly constructed races past several dams that had been breached at the end of their mining days, leaving only sections of the dam wall remaining. While the area now seems very dry, clearly it was able to capture and direct significant amounts of water in the mining days to allow the sluicing to occur across a large area. These water races were generally constructed by miners during summer, when water was scarce and when the sluicing could not operate. While early parts of the walk could have been described as fair