Guidebook launched about lovely but not-so-well known Lerderderg Track

Councillors, sponsors and contributors to the new Lerderderg Track guidebook at the Blackwood launch.

Moorabool Shire councillor, Moira Berry, does the honours.

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​Deep in wild and rugged gorge country, Blackwood was the perfect spot for the launch in October of a new guidebook on the 84km-long Lerderderg Track between Daylesford and Bacchus Marsh. 
 
Launched by the Moorabool Shire Councillor, Moira Berry, the guidebook was published on behalf of volunteer walking group and builders of the Lerderderg Track, the Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA). It is expected to become an essential companion for walkers, bike riders and tourists wanting to experience the remote beauty of the LerderdergRiver and its V-shaped gorge, as well as the region’s rich cultural heritage.
 
“With the publication of the Lerderderg Track Walk or Ride Guide, we now have complete map and track note coverage of the whole of the 300km-long Great Dividing Trail Network captured within a sturdy wiro-bound guidebook format,” said the guidebook’s editor and publisher, Gib Wettenhall.
 
The Lerderderg Track guidebook will act as a companion to the GDTA’s highly successful, award-winning Goldfields Track Walk or Ride Guide, also published by em PRESS. More than map spreads, the new guidebook follows a similar style and format, sandwiching the large scale 1:17,500 ratio maps & accompanying track notes between essays on the Lerderderg’s wildly diverse natural beauty and vivid slices of its cultural heritage, people and places.
 
“Although close to Melbourne, the Lerderderg’s formidable, complex terrain has rendered it largely inaccessible – until now,” commented the GDTA President, Tim Bach.

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​The launch was preceded by a GDTA-guided walk of Blackwood’s top heritage spots from its unique suite of miners’ log cabins to hotels (both still standing and in ruins) and the picturesque cemetery. This is one of seven short circuit walks devised by GDTA members contained within the new Lerderderg Track Walk or Ride Guide. 

Five new interpretive signage placards in Blackwood prepared by Sue Donnelly and Arie Baelde are set to join existing GDTA placards that are already in place along the length of the Lerderderg Track – with the aid of the Blackwood & District Historical Society and the Blackwood Progress Association.
 
"The publishing of the Lerderderg Track guidebook is timely," pointed out Tim Bach.  After three years consideration, the Victorian Government finally proclaimed in early September the formation of the new 44,860-hectare Wombat- Lerderderg National Park, which will double the area under state parks, and embraces the whole of the Lerderderg Track.
 
Significant new features in the Lerderderg Track guidebook are Welcomes to Country from the two Kulin Nation language groups whose traditional lands encompass the Lerderderg Track – the Dja Dja Wurrung in the north and the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung in the south. These Traditional Owners are expected to co-manage with Parks Victoria the new Wombat-Lerderderg National Park, when declared in 2026. 
 
Both of the track’s shire councils, Moorabool and Hepburn, provided funding support for the guidebook, as have two of the local Bendigo banks, Bacchus Marsh and Daylesford.