Woowookarung and Rifle Range Circuit

Woowookarung and Rifle Range Circuit - 13.5 Kms

October 01, 2020

U3A Ballarat Hike No 116

Photo of Blue Group

Hike Report by Jan and contribution from Colin

Our meeting point on Thursday morning was Katy Ryan Rd on the edge of Woowookarung Regional Park where the twenty-five hikers split into 3 groups, setting off 10 minutes apart. The 10 hikers in blue group started on the 13.5 km circuit led by Andrew. Now, I have no idea what direction we went so I'll just say that we walked for a little while along an illegal motorbike track that was made years ago by some locals, and then up along a track that had been revegetated with some brand new tree planting. This was the area that our hiking group had volunteered to replant but the event had to be cancelled because of Coronavirus restrictions.

We walked up and down some hills and along a winding mountain bike track through pleasant bushland and saw lots of wildflowers including Pink Bells and masses of yellow and brown Bush-pea. We went 'off road' to investigate several addits and some large mineshafts covered with metal grating. We crossed Boundary Road at the top of Billycart Hill and it was the only time on the hike that I knew where I was. There is a labyrinth of paths, tracks and roads in Woowookarung. At one point we pondered over the remains of a rusty car which we saw again while walking from the opposite direction!

After a cool and breezy morning tea at the Lookout we dived back into the forest and headed for the rifle range. I must thank Andrew and the other men who had previously chopped a way through the thicket of gorse to provide access to this next part of the hike. Who knew that something so fascinating was hidden away so close to Woowookarung! We stopped briefly at the 100 yard short course and noted the high dirt wall and dilapidated buildings and concrete structure. We wound our way through the gorse and came out upon the cleared strip of the 1000 yard long course. Every so often there were dirt mounds that shooters could stand (?) on or lie (?) on to fire away toward the target at the end of the course. This effectively made the course a variety of lengths.

At the end was a concrete structure, quite like a very long bus shelter complete with regularly spaced seats. Directly in front of this were metal pulley systems to which the target would be attached and hoisted up in the air to be shot at and then lowered again to be checked for accuracy and given a score. Behind this was a very high dirt hill where all the bullets ended up after they'd gone through the targets. It was a bit of a surreal place with it's intact sheds and equipment but abandoned and almost overgrown by gorse and other vegetation. We had our lunch on the Covid-19 compliant spaced seats until the next group came along to explore the site. We made our way back to the cars where we enjoyed our usual after-hike picnic.

Thanks to Andrew for organising such an interesting hike and sharing intriguing information about the rifle range. (Before today I did not know that rifles could shoot something a kilometre away. That is a lonnnng way!)

Oh, and for anyone who missed this piece of advice from Andrew: What do you do if you are attacked by clowns?......go for the juggler.

Contribution from Colin:

In the early 1970s I went with some friends to an open day at the Ballarat East Rifle Club’s rifle range. We were into rabbit shooting and were keen to attend. We got to shoot the club’s 7.62mm (big bore) rifles over a range of 200m. We all shot ‘centre bulls’ and were invited to join the club. We stuck with rabbit shooting instead.

Photos from Mark B and Mark H and the 'before' photos from Andrew