Musk Vale - Wombat Creek Walk

Wombat Creek Walk is a relatively easy, but little known, 3.5km one-way walk on a former timber tramway.

Robert Henderson established a sawmill at Wombat Creek in 1879, and constructed a horse-drawn, timber railed tramways towards the town a few months later. The tramway was probably of 3 foot (0.91m) gauge. When the lease area was logged out, the tramway and sawmill, utilitarian as always, were abandoned, in 1891. But half a century later, there was a brief revival. The Orr brothers set up a sawmill on the same location in 1942 and rebuilt the tramway, but again, it only lasted a short time before the area was reserved for the Wombat Creek reservoir.

This walk starts a short distance north of the Wombat Creek picnic area. The track follows the course of the creek, but at a higher level. Of interest are several well-preserved log landings, and the cuttings visible either side of gullies on side creeks.

The tramway originally ran to the Daylesford - Creswick railway, opened in 1887, but locked gate bars access to private property a short distance south of Jubilee Lake, formed by the rail embankment and named for Queen Victoria's jubilee. Return to the start point is via the same route

Wombat Creek Walk Map

Interactive map

Points of Interest
1. Wombat Creek reservoir
This reservoir is the water supply for Daylesford. The picnic area is on the former sawmill site. There are no toilets or drinking water

2. Tramway formation
The 4WD track visibly becomes a former tramway at about this point. The formation is dug into the steep hillside, which is unusual as such excavation was of course expensive

3. Gully tracks
The tramway followed a different path in some of the gullys to the modern track. At locations such as this, the former tramway can be seen clearly on both sides of the gully

4. Sweeping curves
Some of the gullys are impressive. The broad views give some idea of the scope of the enterprise (the name of one of the sawmills) of the men who lived an worked in these forests

5. End of the line
The former tramway formation is clear enough, but a securely locked gate bars the way.