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Hi – I’ll be tackling the Great Dividing Trail this Easter – specifically the Lerderderg, Dry Diggings, and Leanganook sections (northbound).
I’ve got a few maps and GPXs of the tracks from the great dividing trail association – and they are in the all alltrails app too – so actually finding my way shouldnt be a problem. I am however, having a lot of trouble finding any good information about drinking water – and really dont want to be carrying days worth at a time.
Can anyone tell me what the water situation on these tracks is – and ideally point me at a resource that lists possible sources ?
Thanks.
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Hey Anthony. I’ve hiked the Lerderderg Track Section but not the other two in their entirety. Have you purchased the books from the Great Dividing Trail Association as I believe they have detail about water points. The Lerderderg section mostly follows the Lerderderg River so you should be able to easily access water from the river. I was out there the other day and the river level is really low so I’d fill up from large pools whenever you see them. Often you can find current river levels on this site. http://www.bom.gov.au/vic/flood/rain_river.shtml
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Hey Darren – yeah – got the maps from GDTA – not super useful – I was kind of hoping they’d really spell it out for me.
The bom site reckons the Lerderderg river is at .5 meters at Sardine creek…which sounds pretty positive – not really sure what that means tho – is there a 1/2 meter deep pool somewhere – or its actually a 1/2 meter deep and flowing ? I’m assuming the former.
Cheers
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Hmm. I would have thought so too. I just had a flick through the book I have here (Goldfields Track) and that doesn’t mention water procurement either. Very odd. I’m confident in saying the Lerderderg will be fine but the tracks beyond that pass through dry areas with smaller creeks so you’d need to be prepared to collect water from puddles. Given the lack of info anywhere, I’d be looking at the distances between towns in the hope of filling up there, then studying topo maps for any decent size creeks, lakes and dams along the route. No doubt you are doping that already tough. Sorry I can’t be more help.
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A followup to this .. it was a great walk – took me 7 days. As I feared – water was a challenge – although contrary to expectations, only the Lerderderg section was a problem. I got pretty dehydrated in that section – and it would have been worse, if not for a lucky accident – I missed a turn, and discovered a lovely campsite and water source at Margarets corner.
Dry diggings and Leanganook were not so much of a problem, for probably 3 reasons – 1. There was a significant weather event on the 3rd night – 45mm of rain in 8 hours – cooled things down a lot, and meant the creeks were running – even tho I didnt actually need to dip into them, because 2. The touristy mineral springs, and 3. The trail follows a couple of aquaducts into Castlemaine and especially Bendigo. Also, aside from Mt Alexander and Dog rocks, the Leanganook section is pretty easy / fast compared to the others.
..so in the dry and heat, I really needed to be better at finding water or carrying 6+ liters for the Lerderderg section (I only had 3 – 4), and for the other two sections, 3 or 4 would have been plenty. (of course, I carried 6+ for these).
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