Ten hikers met at Ballarat North Sports Club where we encountered a cold northerly wind chilling us somewhat. We then drove to Creswick and hiked out of the town centre by way of the Goldfields Track to St George’s Lake.
We crossed the recently renovated dam (a $3.4 million project, which began in June 2014 and completed in August 2015, one of the biggest regional dam project in Parks Victoria’s history.) and hiked around the northern shore of lake as the temperature increased slowly and we were protected from the cold wind.
At the eastern end of the lake we re-joined the Goldfields Track and hiked towards Eaton’s Dam. We went through the old Koala Park where in 1942, forestry students constructed a netting fence in a section of the forest to be used as a breeding area for Koalas. Koalas were released in the enclosure to breed and boost the numbers of the local population. However, they were able to climb the fence and so dispersed into the surrounding forest.
At Eaton’s Dam, we inspected the remains of the huge and impressive stone wall which failed in 1933 and flooded Creswick. Eaton’s Dam is an interesting example of early stone and earth construction techniques.
Back on the Goldfields Track, we hiked north to the W.G.Spence house site, (Click here for Wikipedia entry) then headed back west, up and over the ridge where we had views over to the Creswick Forest Resort.
After hiking downhill for a while we joined the La Gerche Trail, which is a 2.2 km long walking track north-east of Creswick that commemorates the life and work of John La Gerche who was a forest bailiff at Creswick from 1882 until 1897. La Gerche’s two outstanding achievements were to halt the rampant cutting of trees for mining and fuel-wood so as to allow regeneration of the forest, and the establishment of the Creswick Nursery.
He rehabilitated a disturbed 30-acre mining area around Sawpit Gully by planting 8,500 trees. The Macedon nursery sent him over 2,000 trees- planes, oaks, ash, maple, Californian Pine, a mixture of eucalypts. But these amounted to only one quarter of the 8,500 he required. On his own initiative, La Gerche organised the rest of the planting stock. He raised nearly 4,000 blue gums and 700 California Pines Pinus radiata.
More than 100 years later these mixed plantings have become a picturesque forest, worthy of heritage status.
Thank you, Gordon T, for organising and leading a very interesting hike