Granite Creek Walking Tracks.
| Track 96 Goldfields Granite Creek Walking Tracks. | |
| The starting point of this walk is situated on the main Dargo Road, which
offers all bitumen access from the Princes Highway. It may also be reached by
taking the Freestone Creek Road from Briagolong, a more interesting gravel 2WID
road but not suitable for caravans. The complete walk. comprising Circuits 1, 2 and 3, is about 8kms long and takes 4-5 hours depending on how much time is spent exploring the mines and other interesting sites. The walk is mainly along cleared water races (i.e. channels constructed to carry water from creeks or man made dams to wash dirt and gravel to extract gold). The Granite Creek map overleaf shows five of these water races, though there are more not relevant to this walk.. They all finish up at Granite Creek in a section about 500m long. Circuit No 1 - 45 minutes The walk starts from the car park at the Pretty Boy saddle on the Dargo Road. There is a shelter here. a BBQ and plenty of room to park cars. Foil* an old logging road down towards Granite Creek and turn off this to the right after approximately 200m. Follow the signs to the site of the old battery, used to crush the ore from the mines. On the way to the battery site you will pass some old house sites. If you wish to return to the car park at this stage, follow the track left across the creek and keep to the left past some old house sites and gold diggings, then across Davis Creek onto No 2 Water Race for a short distance. Follow the signs back to the car park. Circuit No 2 - 1.5hrs; Instead of crossing the creek follow No 4 Water Race upstream to the old dam site which supplied water to No 4 Water Race and the battery. Swing left and cross Granite Creek. Follow the walking track up the hill and past the old workings of the Evening Star Mine. Continue along No 5 Water Race for a small distance. then down to another old dam site where No 1 Water race finished. The next ~ion of the walk follows this race around the spur towards Simpson Creek. Once again there are old mine workings along the way to be viewed. If you do not wish to complete the full walk, take the signposted track to the left which will return you to Circuit No. 1 and the car park. Circuit No 3 - 3hrs Continue to follow Water Race No 1 to Simpson Creek. which you will cross. There was another dam here. Continue until you reach Reedy Creek Road. You now have a choice: 1 Turn left and follow the road down hill for approximately one kilometre to where No 2 Water Race crosses the road. This race will take you back to Simpson Creek again then towards Granite Creek. and from here up the logging track back to the car park. 2. Another route that can be taken is to travel approximately 1 00m down Reedy Creek Road. turn right on to the old logging road. intersect with No 2 Water race track approximately 350 metres down. then pick up signed walking track to the car park. If instead you continue on this old logging road you will join up with the rest of the Track 96 from Lees Creek after crossing Cobbannah Creek. |
