Coliban Walk/Ride
Sutton Grange Rd – Sandhurst Reservoir
You follow the Coliban channel, an ingenious system of gravity-fed channels artificial waterfalls and aqueducts built in the 1870s to bring water from the top of the Divide to Bendigo. Some of the engineering involved is startling, almost sculptural in its impact.
The first of these encountered is the 623m long Wirths tunnel, which is bookended with dressed granite block portals. The next tunnel, the 453m long, Brennans tunnel differs in that the portal is roughly hewn into the hillside. The most spectacular steam punk engineering features are the two sets of waterfalls at Womans Gully and Cuneens Gully. They come complete with vertical chutes for dissipating the force of water as it heads from the base of each falls around bends in the channel.
The track is mostly flat and winding with vegetation close to the channel and views across farmland to bare, boulder-strewn hills.
At 12.5km from Sutton Grange Rd, you reach a turn-off point for a designated Parks Victoria campsite. The GDTA has supplied a 12,000 litre water tank nearby on the channel.
From here the channel becomes lined with rock rubble and keeps winding back on itself. In a few places, patches of dressed rock from the old, original channel can be seen.
Sandhurst Reservoir is tricky to access by road. You have to do this via Phillis St, off the Calder Highway, just before you reach Kangaroo Flat. Check the Goldfields Track guidebook for detail.
SUPPLIES & FACILITIES
No supplies. Water is available from a GDTA tank, with the Parks Victoria camping ground at Mandurang South nearby. Vehicle access to Cuneens Gully from Springs Rd and to the campground via Mandurang South Rd.
Refer maps 30 - 32 of the Goldfields Track Walk or Ride Guide
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What you can expect to see
