May 11th, 2025Walks of the Central Highlands

There are 3.5 hours generously allocated to cover this 10.5 loop that meanders through the forest and takes in three mine sites: the Red, White and Blue Mine, Frenchmans Reef, and Dunns Reef.

with Eve Lamb

Muckleford Heritage Walk. 10.5km. Muckleford Nature Conservation Reserve.

Today my trusty walk companion, Paddy H, and I are joining the Great Dividing Trail Association walkers to tackle the 10.5km Muckleford Heritage Walk.

Drawn to its handy ongoing program of led walks, I joined the Association last year. Today, GDTA member and experienced bushwalker, John Lewis will be our walk leader. But members with different specialisations and areas of interest lead different walks that are offered on the GDTA regular events program throughout the year.

At 9.30am, a total 24 walkers – most of them GDTA members plus a small handful of non-member guests – rendezvous at the Red, White and Blue mine site in the Muckleford Nature Conservation Reserve.

The historic mine is worth a look. It features an intact poppet head, a mine shaft, machinery site, mullock heap and dams. The poppet head was originally from the Bendigo Deborah United Mine.

After general chitchat, participant tick-off, a brief introductory talk by our walk leader, and lending Paddy H the requisite $10 (guest insurance and registration fee) that he forgot to bring, we shoulder day packs, apply walking poles and set out.

The time is roughly 9.45am, the sky, blue and fair. But the multiple tannin-coloured puddles strewn about the bush track testify to the recent sorely-needed rainfall that has briefly blessed this parched place.

As we start to cover ground the group strings out along Bells Lane Track. Yet with the walk leader up front and two designated “walk whips” leading up the rear and keeping an eye out for any stragglers forced to heed the call of nature, it consistently remains connected, wending like a colourful serpent through the sun-splashed box-ironbark forest.

We stroll along in easy conversation, walking companions and topics of chit-chat changing up along the way.

There are 3.5 hours generously allocated to cover this 10.5 loop that meanders through the forest and takes in three mine sites: the Red, White and Blue Mine, Frenchmans Reef, and Dunns Reef.

The GDTA walk description we’d received via email as part of registering for this ramble informs that:

Muckleford Forest is an ancient landscape occupied, for tens of thousands of years, by the Dja Dja Wurrung. Then Major Mitchell passed through the area in 1836, and pastoralists soon followed, to squat and establish sheep runs on the grasslands.

Following the discovery of gold at the foot of Mt Tarrengower in 1853, miners spread through the region in pursuit of gold, and the scars of early mining are evident throughout the forest.

“It’s called Tough Guys Book Club and there are two overarching rules. Don’t talk about work and don’t be a Dickhead…” I can hear Paddy H, from somewhere along the track, relishing a captive opportunity to recruit new members for his beloved book club.

I find myself chatting away to long-time GDTA members, like president Tim Bach, who tells me about some appealing walks coming up on the agenda ahead, about walk publications the GDTA has produced already, and more that are in the works.

Other members tell me about fav walks they’ve done, the wealth of knowledge held by fellow members whose personal areas of expertise traverse geology, history and ecology.

Others share esoteric walkers know-how, like how much to expect to pay for a pair of quality walking poles, plus pole pitfalls to avoid at the point of purchase.

Much of John’s introductory talk focused on the area’s considerable mining history. We swing right and take a very gentle climb to stop for morning tea atop the quartzy outcrop that is Frenchmans Reef. The conversation again swings round to the shiny yellow stuff as 24 backsides are planted on or against various natural bushland features while thermoses are dug from daypacks.

“Is this lunch or morning tea?” one walker wonders

“Morning tea. Lunch is later,” someone says… And we’re soon moving again, stopping along the way to check out points of interest that include:

An iron grill-protected mining tunnel through rock in the middle of the bush
various ferrous pebble deposits where, particularly following rainfall, gold is apparently far more likely to congregate.
the sweetly dappled day-bed of a wallaby
A tiny pond full of frisky frogcall.

More than 300 plant and 50 bird species are reported from the Reserve, according to the GDTA walk description for today’s loop that’s rated “easy” as it only involves an overall elevation gain of less than 200m.

And a fair bit of this cameo incline occurs as the group gambols up the gravelly girth of Dunns Reef where we stop for lunch admiring a view across to Maldon and Mount Tarrengower to the north west.

From here we take the Red, White and Blue Track to complete the loop and arrive back at the Red, White, and Blue mine site with GDTA members already looking forward to their next outing planned for May – the 10.5km Coliban Water Channel Walk.