The Lerderderg Gorge
So completely has the Lerderderg Gorge played the part of Cinderella to the beautiful and geologically interesting Werribee Gorge that its name is but little known. The Lerderderg River has its source in some secret gully in the Dividing Range. As it lengthens, it flows through agricultural country, and then winds about among the hills past the sites of old mining camps. At the township of Blackwood the banks of the stream become higher and higher, and, soon attaining the dignity of cliffs, from the beginning of the Lerderderg Gorge. Though anglers frequently follow the stream down from Blackwood a few miles and some from Bacchus Marsh ascend a few miles on their side, it is not often that the complete journey through the gorge is made. Recently a party, before attempting the trip, inquired of several people the distance. It was informed by some that it was 70 miles; others with as little reason gave an estimate of 16 miles. “It is solved by walking” says an old Latin proverb. The walking proved the distance to be roughly 30 miles—rough miles, whatever the exact number.
There is no made track, so the traveller must follow the bed of the river. During the summer months this can usually be done, for then the stream shrinks to a trickle connecting innumerable green and crystal pools, in the depths of which trout and blackfish have their shadowy homes. At times the cliffs are a couple of hundred feet high, sometimes rising perpendicularly out of the stream for 40 or 50 feet, and are clothed with various species of eucalypts and dense jungles of undergrowth. In some places there are patches of sand like sea sand, but usually brown in colour. They extend only a few yards, but they give a welcome relief to the walker who has been stepping from stone to stone and from boulder to boulder.
Here walking at the rule of two miles an hour is a good pace, for even if one is occasionally able to leave the river-bed and walk along a narrow bank one has to push his way through thick scrub. For some miles after leaving Blackwood there are signs of the searches that have been made for gold. Here and there one can see where the river-bed has been sluiced, though many winter floods have almost obliterated the traces of man’s work, and bracken and bush have overgrown most of the water-races. The framework of a hut or two indicates, perhaps, the sites of forgotten townships.
The Lerderderg Gorge is but a narrow winding way through the mountains, yet it is wide enough for the summer sunshine to come freely to its depths. Most of the streams that bring tribute to it are dark and shadowy, though these, too, have been scratched by men seeking gold. Although the scenery is very fine, the walk cannot be described as pleasant unless one be willing to make a fair allowance for the joy of adventure. Though the distance from Blackwood to Bacchus Marsh is only about 30 miles, and the last few miles of the way are along a level road, it is a journey that requires three days. They jest at tired muscles and blistered feet who never walked 10 miles; but he who with bed and board on his back has travelled down a boulder-strewn river-bed where a few yards of soft sand was a relief to tired legs will admit, even when sitting quietly in an armchair, that perhaps three days is not an extravagant allowance for the trip.
