Bacchus Marsh to Blackwood

H

Hud

Likes Dirt
Hi all. I'm going to do the ride marked on the website below. If you zoom into Bacchus Marsh you will see the route marked in green from Bacchus Marsh to Blackwood. As far as I know this is the GDT, at least most of the way, via Swans road and Byers Back track. Anyone know how long it will take or how difficult it is? Aiming to do it on Cup Day if anyone wants to come. Pace will be cruisy and we will be just enjoying to scenery and trails. Should be good weather for it. Comments or feedback welcome.
(I'll be getting hold of the Lerderderg GDT trail map tomorrow which should fill in a few gaps).

http://www.opencyclemap.org/
 
R

rockcrawler

Likes Bikes
hey mate

i have not done this before but could be interested in joining you tomorrow. i'm just doing some research now to make sure i am up to the challenge, but so far it looks doable. PM me to work out arrangements. cheers.
 
H

Hud

Likes Dirt
Ok we have changed plans a bit. We are meeting Blackwood on the main street at 8am. Early start as some of the guys need to get home early. We are going to ride through Golden Point and do Byers Back track down to Obriens crossing. Then ride up O'brians road to Whisky track. Whisky track comes out onto Mt Blackwood road, near mt blackwood. We might go up to mt blackwood to the lookout. Then its back down mt blackwood road to tretham-myrniong road via a singeltrack that apparently runs beside mt blackwood road (according to bancoora.com.au) (very helpful website by the way) Then down O briens road again for a bit beofre hanging a left onto kangaroo track and then a little bit of byers back track to the cars. We'll replenish there, maybe have a coffee or something then go and do the garden of st erth loop which is not too big and its easy i believe. If we have time after that some of us may explore the GDT a little way out the north of Blackwood.
Ive never been out here before so I dont know how hard it will be or how long it will take. Shouldn't be too bad though. Gonna be fun!

You two above are welcome but its up to you to decide if you're up to it. It won't be race pace however.
I'm keen to ride up from Bacchus Marsh sometime, but it'll have to be another day. Its a 12km climb apparently.

Cheers
Hayden
0427100469
(text me if you're coming)
 
H

Hud

Likes Dirt
We'll park near the main group of shops. This may be on Martin Street or the main road. Not sure.
 
C

cowpat

Cannon Fodder
It's a fairly cruisy ride - a good days outing, I've done the same except we didn't head past Obriens Crossing.

The little corner shop in Blackwood should be open tomorrow too, food's not too bad. Have fun. Casper

Oh yeah - take a torch to have a look in the mine on Byers - there was a wombat huddled in the hole at the very end one time I was there.
 
R

rockcrawler

Likes Bikes
Good fun ride today. Thanks for organising, and thanks to all the riders for having patience for a newbie. Cheers.
 
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H

Hud

Likes Dirt
Was a great ride, thanks to all who turned up and made it a fun group to be with. Thrills and spills and hike-a-bike. We did over 50km and 1200m.
Garden of St Erth loop was an easy water-race-like 7 km. Good for a wind down.

Edit: Didn't have much luck in finding the motorbike track down the edge of Mt Blackwood road.
 
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singleminded

singleminded

Likes Bikes
Not a lot to offer in terms of water-race shots but here goes:-

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Believe it or not, they are enjoying the ride - smile everyone!!
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Trying to pick a winner for the Melbourne Cup!
IMG_1834.jpg

IMG_1865.jpg

IMG_1868.jpg
 
shakes

shakes

Likes Dirt
Pretty annoyed with myself for looking at this thread. I was tempted to come, but didn't initially because of a family lunch and then I got some horrible flu-like thing which was the end... Looks like a great ride. Make sure you post up next time you are doing something similar!
 
R

rdurrell

Likes Bikes
Lerderderg Park

Hi Hud. If you want to do the Bacchus Marsh to Blackwood ride, it's a good climb but well worth the effort with some great views into the gorge coming up from Swans Road and you can get into Mt Blackwood now where the comms towers are for some brilliant views as well. I have logged some info on the website for the Swans Road portion here. Theres some pictures and video of the trail on the web page to give you an idea. It's basically fire trail but its a good ride particularly on the way down as the roller coaster hills can be motored up and over. Going up it feels like its just all up (but that's just showing my age:biggrin:).

As for the Mount Blackwood Road, as the website says the trail is intermittent. It usually tracks from one side to the other but there are sections with none. I used to have a map of sections on the website but in a recent upgrade, I took the maps off to save a bit of time. I'll put them back up but you can see them here. Part of the marked tracks are the Struck Oil and Red White and Blue Tracks. I put these in as the Whisky Track is off limits to bikes and hence it was put in to form a link to trails to the west of the Greendale Trentham Road to get outside the Conservation zone of the park.

Basically the tracks open in the Conservation Zone for bikes (basically the area bounded by Byers Back Track, Greendale Trentham Road and Mt Blackwood Road and anything to the east) are the Blackwood Ranges Track (Swans Road to Mt Blackwood - specifically allows bikes), any fire trails open to vehicles (not many eg Morning Star Track, Deadmans Track, Amblers Lane) and Kangaroo Track (specifically allows bikes).

When you get to the end of Mt Blackwood Road, you can head into the Charcoal Half Pipe which is like Marriners Run but formed by motorbikes running up and down the sides of a valley - best when dry as you get some bogs in the valley floor - or the Telstra Track. They are described here. The Charcoal Track takes you out to the west of Blackwood where there are plenty of fire trails and motorbike tracks. I've still got to fully explore this area. Hope this helps a bit.

Where were the hike a bike and descent photos out of interest?
 
H

Hud

Likes Dirt
rdurrell said:
Hi Hud. If you want to do the Bacchus Marsh to Blackwood ride, it's a good climb but well worth the effort with some great views into the gorge coming up from Swans Road and you can get into Mt Blackwood now where the comms towers are for some brilliant views as well. I have logged some info on the website for the Swans Road portion here. Theres some pictures and video of the trail on the web page to give you an idea. It's basically fire trail but its a good ride particularly on the way down as the roller coaster hills can be motored up and over. Going up it feels like its just all up (but that's just showing my age:biggrin:)


As for the Mount Blackwood Road, as the website says the trail is intermittent. It usually tracks from one side to the other but there are sections with none. I used to have a map of sections on the website but in a recent upgrade, I took the maps off to save a bit of time. I'll put them back up but you can see them here. Part of the marked tracks are the Struck Oil and Red White and Blue Tracks. I put these in as the Whisky Track is off limits to bikes and hence it was put in to form a link to trails to the west of the Greendale Trentham Road to get outside the Conservation zone of the park.

Basically the tracks open in the Conservation Zone for bikes (basically the area bounded by Byers Back Track, Greendale Trentham Road and Mt Blackwood Road and anything to the east) are the Blackwood Ranges Track (Swans Road to Mt Blackwood - specifically allows bikes), any fire trails open to vehicles (not many eg Morning Star Track, Deadmans Track, Amblers Lane) and Kangaroo Track (specifically allows bikes).

When you get to the end of Mt Blackwood Road, you can head into the Charcoal Half Pipe which is like Marriners Run but formed by motorbikes running up and down the sides of a valley - best when dry as you get some bogs in the valley floor - or the Telstra Track. They are described here. The Charcoal Track takes you out to the west of Blackwood where there are plenty of fire trails and motorbike tracks. I've still got to fully explore this area. Hope this helps a bit.

Where were the hike a bike and descent photos out of interest?
Click to expand...
Gday RDurrel
Yeah we did a few short bits of singletrack beside MT Blackwood road, there was a bit more but we weren't sure what was what and didn't have the energy for exploring at this point. Just nothing like I expected. We did ride Telstra track along to O'brians road. We couldv'e done more of your website tracks which I had studied but I didn't want to bite off too much on my first time out there. Your website was a great help though, I hardly needed a map at all during the ride as I had everything memorised.

The hike-a-bike was down and up the gorge on whisky track. Very arduous. Certainly walking track only but we had no choice at this point. I would strongly suggest you don't ride Whisky trk for a number of reasons. I was only expecting a creek crossing. I saw the sign about no bikes in the conservation area but thought it was referring to a side track running of Whisky track. (Since whisky track is part of the GDT I thought it was open to bikes.) So- we wont be going back on whisky track again.
The descent pics were of the steep bit of Kangaroo track and the one of me walking was on Whisky track.

Is the 9km loop at the end of garden of St Erth loop open to bikes? (whipstick loop?) It seems on the map board nearby that part of it is part of the GDT. It was closed due to storm damage when we were there. Is it worth riding the GDT north from here out to (Nolans?) picnic ground ?

Cheers
 
R

rdurrell

Likes Bikes
Lerderderg

Thanks for the comments Hud. The GDT is partly open to bikes. If you have a look at their website the Goldfields (GDT) trail is largely open to MTB between Ballarat and Bendigo. They are working towards making it all open to MTBs with diversions / dual tracks where required and they're are currently planning a link between Blackwood and Woodend as well. The leg to Bacchus Marsh is not fully open yet

Apart from the obvious problems you had on the Whisky Track, I don't think this section will ever be opened up to bikes because of Cinnamon fungus in the area which you can actually see on this leg of the walk if you refer to the map notes.

I thought the descent might have been Kangaroo Track but I thought it had a lot more loose rocks - I quite like the run down this track. Deadmans Track is a similar sort of fire trail but not quite as steep. Great for a quick run down into the gorge.

Re the trail out past the Garden of St Erth, I'd recommend the top trail only. If you start at the car park and head through the pine groves, turn left at the trail just before Lerderderg (the gravel) road and follow it along. I say this because this and the lower trail do have walkers on them. The top trail is fine as there are good sight lines and plenty of room to get past - the lower trail is extremely thin in places and has a number of stair cases and I reckon walkers would rightly get pissed off if you used it. The top trail ultimately comes down onto Lerderderg Road near Wheelers Track I think it is which is where it heads across the road to the lower loop. There are parts you can ride westwards from here on the GDT - refer here. As I noted in the trail notes, I rode this part recently and it was pretty tedious with trees down, overgrown etc. There are some steep fire trails off to the south here which you could form a loop into the Nolans Creek area (eg Otties Track, Wheelers Track which are similar to Kangaroo Track).

As the area to the west of the Greendale Trentham Road is not a conservation area, it gets a lot of use by motorbikes so I reckon an exploration of the area south of Nolans Creek would be worth while in the summer when the bogs dry up a bit. If you find anything, let me know and I'll post it up as it helps everyone to find good rides.

Also have a look at Sweet Nuggs to the north and the Countess loop. The former is good in the wet. Countess Loop is one for the drier months unless you like mud as the motor bikes rip it up. Again there are plenty of little side trails in this area. If you want gpx files, email on the website link and I'll send them to you for the GPS. I'm going to repost them shortly on the website - another thing that I've got to re-post after the website upgrade.

Bottom line is get a good topo map and have an explore - sometimes you can stumble on some gems out there. Your trip is an example of that with some crappy sections but some good stuff as well but at the end of the day it was fun...:biggrin:
 
R

rockcrawler

Likes Bikes
the run down kangaroo to byer's was awesome. it made the ride up o'brien's worth it. you guys on the singlespeeds astound me with your effortless climbing.

ray, your site is a great inspiration to explore this area, as it's not too far from me. thanks for the informative and comprehensive cataloguing of tracks.
 
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