Day 3 saw me complete the descent down to the Coliban channel. I had arranged for a second water drop here which I collected before continuing along the channel. The channel offers some interesting old stone work and one has to wonder at the amount of work that was done without today’s modern efficient machinery. I finished day 3 at the designated camp site just off the Coliban channel in the Greater Bendigo National Park
Day 4 whilst this was my longest day it was generally downhill which made walking a little easier. Starting in the Greater Bendigo National Park the track soon joins the channel again which it follows until you meet the fence of the Sandhurst Reservoir. After that it follows a mix of tracks ranging from walking track, right though to concrete foot paths in the suburbs of Bendigo before reaching the Bendigo rail station.
Note on navigation and water, whist the guide book is quite detailed and the track is generally well marked there was a few places where I needed to check my position or check the direction I was heading. This was more often in the bush areas close to Bendigo and Castlemaine where there are lots of criss-crossing tracks, and also heading down the eastern side of the Mt Alexander Regional Park where I found the track to be less travel and thus harder to pick out in the grass.
The guide book also indicates there may be no water available along the track. Since I was walking in late winter I felt there should be water about, however as I could not guarantee both quality and quantity I arranged two water drops. Each day I did see water in creeks both small and large and (of course) in the aqueduct. Now I would not use any of these sources without treatment. So if you are planning this trip I would recommend arranging water drops.
According to my GPs I walked, day 1, 14.5 Km, day 2, 13.5 Km, day 3, 18Km and day 4, 21 Km.
You may want to consider the Sawyer Squeeze™ Filter system when hiking in such areas, they work well when connected to an Evernew collapsible flask. It is amazing consider what man has achieved over the years and your stone work photo demonstrates what we are capable of. I suspect that the emphasis on time as compared to quality is why we do not see such products these days. Do you have any more photos of the stone work?
ReplyDeleteWater treatment, well there is a topic guaranteed to fill out a few blog posts. Naturally the guide book errs on the side of caution, and I have taken the same approach with my post. But I did take water treatment with me and should I do the same trip again I would only do one water drop (the first one) and treat for the rest of the trip.
DeleteYes there is a whole range of factors that affects this type of work today, I suspect that with today’s environmental awareness it would be difficult to get a project like this approved.
Funny you mention the stone work, I was quite taken by what I saw and did take a few photos. However when I was preparing the post none of them really jumped out. But in hind sight I do feel the post lacked shots of the old stone work, so I will do a separate post for them.