290. Wombat Station - White Point Diggings 10.8km

February 15, 2024

U3A Hike No 290

Hike Report by Peter Treby

A large group of 18 hikers assembled at Kirk’s Reservoir car park and headed by car convoy to the long-gone gold era mining town of Wombat, and the rotunda that marks the site of the Wombat Railway Station. This was the start of a delightful 10.8 km circuit walk in perfect weather, with blue skies and temperature reaching the low 20s.

We first headed North along the Wombat Station Track. There were plenty of droppings left by the marsupial after which the forest is named. Ever wondered how a wombat manages to produce a cuboid scat? So have interested scientists. The 2019 Ig Nobel Prize for physics was awarded to Patricia Yang and others for their investigations reported to the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics.

Why did wombats evolve this talent? (see link after photos)

“The shape is good for communication, too. Wombats have terrible eyesight but an excellent sense of smell, so they use faeces as a way of communicating to tell each other who lives where and whether a female is ready to mate. They are highly territorial: a misplaced territory marker could spell disaster, so having droppings that don’t roll away is important, especially as wombats will often leave their mark outside their burrow entrances or on top of rocks and logs.”

We headed further north and stopped by the White Point diggings, a site of high pressure sluice gold mining. The site, like most of the walk, is now covered in messmates, stringybarks, blackwood wattle, and a smooth barked eucalypt, possibly candlebark, around 25 metres high. These drop a lot of sticks on the track, and I found myself frequently tripping over them. But a handy fallen messmate log made a good seat for morning tea.

We joined with parts of the Wallaby Track section of the Goldfields Track, and circled back to our starting point via part of the North Creswick to Daylesford Railway line. This line opened in 1887, and closed progressively between 1953 and 1986. We inspected one of the more easily accessible culverts under the rail alignment. The culverts along here are well made brick arched tunnels, a testament to the quality construction of the 1880s.

Returning to the track, I was in a group 7 or 8 walkers behind the lead group. I stopped suddenly for what I think was a lowland copperhead snake, more than a metre in length, which disappeared completely from view in a clump of reed and grass on the track. It is remarkable that the lead group had wandered past it without noticing or commenting, and also remarkable how completely it vanished from sight!

My heart rate came back to normal by the time we again pulled into Wombat Station for lunch around midday.

This walk was a really enjoyable return to U3A Hiking for me, after too long an absence. Many thanks to Gordon for his thorough organisation, and to both Andrew and Gordon for talking at points of interest along the way.

The area is currently in line to be amalgamated with the Lerderderg State Park, and become the Wombat-Lerderderg National Park by 2030