April 13th, 2025Walks of the Central Highlands

With Eve Lamb

Moonlight Gully Circuit walk, Blackwood 4km

The Lerderderg State Park offers some top bushwalking options and today my trusty walking companion and I are here to sample one of them – a short, sharp little circuit that sets out from the Blackwood Springs Reserve.

Driving carefully past the Blackwood Mineral Springs Caravan Park that nestles on Golden Point Road beside the Lerderderg River, we stop momentarily (on account of my walking companion’s admirable inclinations) to drop a requested $3 gate donation into an honesty box strategically positioned to catch the pious and unwary on entering the Reserve.

Once at the pretty little Springs Reserve picnic area we park, shoulder our day packs and stroll across the footbridge over the river, where we encounter a couple of bush-walking blokes filling a container with the waters of said springs.

“How’s the water?” I enquire.

“Tasty,” says one of the two, who are visiting from Werribee.

There’s apparently good reason for their summation of the waters as according to on-site signage the mineral springs here were described in 1887 by the French government analyst as “equal to ‘Apollinaire’, an expensive French wine”. Owing to a subsequent reduction in chloride and sulphate concentrations over the years since, the signage asserts, they have only improved with age.

My walking accomplice, Paddy H, gives the waters a whirl and reckons they do taste pretty good.

The blokes say they’re planning to do the same neat little 4km circuit walk as us, only in the reverse direction.

Paddy H and I take the signposted option to the right and set out following the path that will take us firstly along the river then up to Sweets Lookout, and then on to Lake Shaw and Hard Hills to complete the Moonlight Gully circuit.

It’s a ferny ramble along the forest-fringed river with maiden hair and tree ferns growing among other attractive under-storey plants including native clematis with its fluffy silvery seed-heads catching the autumn light.

In a couple of spots along the trail we encounter taped-off cavities identifying the location of disused mine-shafts, legacies from this area’s intensive mid 1800s gold rush era history.

Gold was reported to have been found in the vicinity of the Lerderderg River early in 1851, according to my go-to walk manual, ‘Walks, Tracks and Trails of Victoria’ by Derek Stone.

The book’s potted history also informs that in November and December of 1851 gold was dug up in hefty quantities near Blackwood. But it took another four years before the real gold rush began. In 1855, 300 diggers arrived and within a short time there were 2000 milling about with a lust for the yellow shiny stuff which, Paddy H duly informs me, has been “breaking records” in terms of current day global prices.

But back in the day, a “rush” known as the Geelong Rush brought thousands of prospectors to the field to work the alluvials of the Lerderderg River. Over 13,000 diggers, shop owners, blacksmiths, and con men were on these gold fields by September 1855.

Fortunately it’s more serene now. After hiking on for about a kilometer we reach a signposted left-hand turn that heads up to The Lookout. This is where the sharp part of “short and sharp” comes into it.

The climb up to Sweets Lookout is the most exertion that this little circuit hike entails. The brief yet pulse-raising effort is rewarded more with simply reaching the top than with any spectacular vista as the view all round is pretty leafy. But then a good dose of leafiness is largely what we’re here for.

From the apex of Sweets Lookout we continue on straight ahead through the eucalypt forest, following the path toward where a bushland shelter, with more informative signage, eventually appears up ahead to our left, on the other side of a dirt road with which our foot track intersects.

We notice the shelter through the trees off in the distance before, on checking it out, we discover  that we have also arrived at the tranquil little pond-sized body of water that is Lake Shaw.

“Good spot for a coffee break,” suggests Paddy H. I agree and we crack out the thermos and cake and sit admiring the swaying reeds, watery reflections and mysterious ripples in the little lake for an hour or so.

From here we re-join the trail, which is clearly signposted, to complete this handy little Moonlight Gully circuit walk, observing the calling cards of resident forest wombats as we ramble along.

“You could do this as your evening walk if you were staying at the caravan park,” Paddy H muses, as we agree we should return.

Completing the circuit, we arrive back at our start point of the springs to find a newcomer is now filling a recycled yoghurt bottle with the subterranean mineral waters.

We end our walk on a promise to return and sample some of the longer Lerderderg Walks taking in more of the Lerderderg River and also the Lerderderg Gorge. As a nifty little introductory reconnoitre ramble today’s Moonlight Gully circuit walk has been ideal.

Words & Images: Eve Lamb