Similar to those produced by the Sierra Club for national parks in the United States, the Goldfields Track walking guide is well designed with superb photographs and expert commentary on both the landscape aspects and cultural heritage. 

 ‘A sense of place’ has deliberately been fostered by sourcing the guide’s designer, writers, cartographer and photographers from the central Victorian goldfields region.

Recently upgraded to become the longest shared mountain bike riding and walking track in Victoria, the 210km Goldfields Track stretches from Mt Buninyong via Ballarat, Creswick, Daylesford and Castlemaine to Bendigo. Now the track’s original band of volunteer builders, the Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA), has published via em PRESS a comprehensive full colour guide complete with 33  large scale (1:25,000) contour maps painstakingly produced by VicMap. Gib Wettenhall acted as the lead writer and producer of the guide.  He is the publications manager for the GDTA.

The map spreads are sandwiched between sections offering expert essays on, first, reading the landscape – from the underlying geology to the diverse range of plants and animals, through to the marks left behind by the various mining techniques employed during what is often described as “the greatest the gold rush the world has ever seen.” The second series of essays offers the cultural heritage context. The Goldfields Track – more than any other walking or bike trail in this country – embraces the rich heritage left behind in the forests and gullies, beside creeks and rivers, and on plains and mountaintops. 

For online orders and retail outlets, visit the website of the  Great Dividing Trail Association. 


RRP $29.95
160 pages, full colour, illustrated throughout
Paperback, wire bound 
ISBN 978-0-9757778-5-5  
  

Presented by the Royal Historical Society and the Public Record Office of Victoria, the judges' citation for the award reads: 

"This wonderful exposition about the Gunditjmara people and their country... is well-researched, clearly presented and shows a profound knowledge and understanding of the natural cultural and historical elements that made the landscape and its people in their many manifestations through to present times.

"This publication is a superb community history."

Gib Wettenhall has written a book with the Gunditjmara people of south-west Victoria, which brings to life the amazing story about their traditional eel aquaculture systems and stone house settlements, along with the Eumeralla War they fought to prevent dispossession.

The People of Budj Bim received a  glowing review in the December 2010 edition of the Victorian Education Department's Shine magazine.  It was described as bringing "a hidden and fascinating piece of Victoria's Aboriginal history into contemporary view."

 Fiona Capp in The Age agreed, citing the book as "clearly written, enlightening... an excellent teaching tool (and ) a must-read for anyone who wants the full picture on the history of the Western District."  

The book retails for $25  – you can buy online for this price without extra  p&h charges.
  
Buy now  for $25 only (inc p&h) via the Shop Online menu or Contact Us for bulk orders. For more info visit Reviews or for media reviews and further reading, go to The People of Budj Bim website.

With over 120 rock art sites, the Grampians/Gariwerd National Park contains the most culturally significant Aboriginal sites in Victoria, and is one of the state’s premier tourist destinations.  A precursor to The People of Budj Bim and similar in style, The People of Gariwerd gives the Aboriginal side of the story for these ranges. 
It is lavishly illustrated and aimed at visitors to the Grampians. In its 3rd print run, The People of Gariwerd tells for the first time how Aboriginal people have maintained an intense and unbroken relationship with the peaks and plains of the Gariwerd for tens of thousands of years. 
Limited numbers available from em PRESS for $25 (inc p&h). Buy now via the Shop Online menu.

Gariwerd: Reflecting on the Grampians is a high quality, large format book of 95 lyrical photographic images and five challenging essays that pays homage to this landscape like no other on this most unique of continents. Reduced by a third in price: $49.95  for the standard edition; $79.95  for the deluxe limited slip case edition – and we’ll throw in a pack of eight postcards for free. Buy now via the Shop Online menu.

Check out more about this book on www.gariwerd.com

Again for only $14.95 (plus p&h), a pair of novels by local blues statesman and speechwriter Craig Horne, who is the lead singer and songwriter for the Hornets. Black comedies, Bureaucracy Blues and its sequel Alpha Jerk chart the sex and drug-fuelled rise and fall of a public servant who becomes a rock star. Buy now via the Shop Online menu.


Craig's band has been described by The Age as "the best blues band in Melbourne." – visit www.thehornets.com.au

Two books by award winning author Ric Throssel for $14.95 (plus p&h). First, an autobiography My Father’s Son by the diplomat son of celebrated writer Katharine Susannah Pritchard, who was accused of being a spy, PLUS his final epic novel Tomorrow.

Buy now via the Shop Online menu.

If you buy the Gariwerd book PLUS any of the above offers (inc a copy of The People of Budj Bim), we will give you  the relationship-saving A Date to Remember Perpetual Calendar at a 66% discount off its original price – you’ll never forget a birthday again! Why ruin a perfectly good relationship just because you forgot?

Hang it in the office, kitchen, even on the back of the toilet door – wherever it will act as a memory prompter for those important annual occasions in the life of friends, colleagues and family.

Otherwise only sold in sets of five at half price. Buy now via the Shop Online menu.