I set off for this walk, which is one of  the walks in the 150 Walks in Victoria book, through Castlemaine, following the Pyrenees Hwy until reaching the Great Dividing Trail, just out of Chewton. Once at Chewton, the trail went into a forest, passing the Poverty Gully reservoir, before heading back to Castlemaine. I couldn’t help but wonder about the name of the reservoir, perhaps alluding to the scarcity of water in the area during gold mining times.

The walk passes by many old gold mining relics such as gullies, and remnants of diggings, making it obvious that this was once a heavy gold mining area.

I’ve been looking forward to walking parts of the Great Dividing Trail,  and so thoroughly enjoyed this walk, which was mostly flat, except for The Monk. I’d rate it a quick, easy walk.

 

As suggested in the book, I detoured a little to the Pennyweight Flat Children’s Cemetery. The detour was short and well worth it. I’ve been to this cemetery a couple of times previously, and it never fails to touch me. If you would like to know more about the Children’s Cemetery, click on the link to read a post that I wrote, for my Family History/Genealogy blog.

I diverted slightly from the route instructions, as there were many council workers and volunteers upgrading the track. They were spoiling my peaceful walk, so I decided to slightly change the route. This added a little distance to the walk, making it a 15k round trip.

After the diversion, I again joined the Great Dividing Trai,l for a beautiful walk through sparse forest, passing the Poverty Gully water race, which heads towards Castlemaine. The trail then also heads towards Castlemaine. But before leaving the area, the walk instructions led me up a hill to a summit called The Monk, which this walk is named for.  I then followed the trail back to the Tourist Information Centre at Castlemaine.

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*Poverty Gully Water Race photo from abc.net.au as my photo wasn’t usable.