U3A Ballarat Hikers

 U3A Hike No 300 Hike Report By Colin Eleven hikers set off from Bunnings Delacombe to Smythesdale to hike the Jubilee Heritage Walk. Rob brought his son, a geo-tech engineering student. After a cool start the weather warmed up a little resulting in pleasant hiking conditions. The hike was mainly on minor dirt roads, led by Jan under the expert tutelage of Andrew. The whip was Mark. We saw evidence of large scale historic mining - cyanide tanks, foundations for boilers, crushers, etc. plus the remains of a few early houses. We had a rest break beside a large dam, probably built for mining purposes. We had an early lunch at the Jubilee Mine car park. Andrew led a brief Remembrance ceremony to commemorate ANZAC Day. This was followed by a rendition of "I Was Only 19" ( the Redgum song about  conscription and the Vietnam War ) by  Andrew and Jan, singing and playing the ukulele. Photos By Andrew LINKS DOWNLOAD A GPX ROUTE FILE FOR GARMIN ETC INTERACTIVE MAP HISTORICAL NOTES BLAS

 U3A Hike No 299 Have you tried to Google Ben Major? Maybe it was named for Major Mitchell but the early hits seem to be various TV identities, sportsmen and businessmen named Benjamin Major. Not a lot anyway about the area northeast of Beaufort to which 14 of us travelled and parked near the intersection of Granite Track and Ration Track. A hundred metres of so of bush bashing took us to Cosmopolitan Track. It had been recently graded, probably to give better access to fire trucks during the recent summer fires in the area. No sign of those fires on our walk but glimpses of nearby hills towards Mt Cole showed blackened areas. A wallaby near the track allowed us to get close enough for photos before it limped away. Light scrub surrounded our walk as we headed NW, along pleasantly named Grevillea Track then S around Ben Major Floral Reserve. Only one hill before morning tea but it was a good one! Morning tea was at an intersection of the aptly named Big Hill Track. Indeed it did t

 U3A Hike No 298 Hike Report by Joan Brick Our hike, lead by the capable Mark Hawley, took nine of us to a very historical gold mining area located in the Wombat State Forest surrounding the quaint township of Blackwood. The tracks that we followed on our adventure were the Easter Monday Track, the Wheeler Track and the Lerderderg Historical River Track all having their own interesting features that challenged and yet awed us in different ways.  The descriptionin the notes was spot on when we were warned about the LONG STEEP ROCKY climb up Easter Monday Track at the start. Of course, being the troopers that we were, we just took it in our stride and made our way to the top. While we stopped to catch a breath, have a drink and take in the views, we were told a bit of the story about the Easter Monday Mine. This mine was named by Joseph Skinner and his brother Alfred who discovered the mine on Easter Monday in 1907. The Easter Monday Goldmining Company was formed and continued until abou