Djuwang Baring Trails Updates
On Saturday 30 November 2024 Hepburn Shire Council officially opened the full 60km of the Djuwang Baring (Crewick Trails) network of mountain bike trails. To celebrate, we hosted a party at Hammon Park Trailhead.
What to expect when the trails are open
While the construction of trails is complete, not all of the tasks associated with construction of the Djuwang Baring network are complete. Across the next 6+ months, additional works will be implemented including:
- formal crossing of Melbourne Road
- continuation of installation of permanent signage to replace temporary signs
- construction of new cycling and pedestrian bridge near St Georges Lake
- fencing and bollards to help manage positive road use
- monitoring of the trails as well as trail and road user behaviour.
Naming of Trails - Update
As a result of the naming engagement outcomes, two new names for trails have been added for consideration for inclusion as part of the Djuwang Baring Trails Network.
These names are:
- Marsupial
- Swamp Wallaby.
For more information on the naming process please scroll down.
If you have concerns about either of these names, please email abreach@hepburn.vic.go.au and let us know the nature of your concern.
This call for submissions process will close on 24 December 2024.
Djuwang Baring Trails Update - September 2024
Djuwang Baring (Creswick Trails) Network requires names for each trail segment for rider recognition as well as to assist emergency services to locate an individual who has called for assistance. In total, more than 60 segment names are required for Djuwang Baring.
Half of the trails will carry names in the Dja Dja Wurrung language and the other half will be in English suggested by the community earlier this year. The themes of the suite of names are largely focused on local flora, fauna as well as cultural and historic heritage. Names will be featured on the trails signage, mapping and promotion.
The list of names linked below represents the draft list of names proposed for the trails and hubs in Djuwang Baring (Creswick Trails). Each name is accompanied by the rationale or justification for the name as compared to the Naming Guidelines.
There are more names on the list than there are trails to name and the proposed trail names are not associated with an individual trail in the network in the list of names on exhibition. The reason for this is to streamline the process. If a name meets with reasonable objections through this process, it may be excluded from the final list of names. Having a surplus of names will mean that there will still be enough names to name all of the trails.
You can download the list as a PDF in the library on this page. If you would like feedback on why the name you submitted is not on the final list, please make a submission below requesting that information.
This engagement will be open until close of business on 10 October, or a period of 30 days.
Names submitted by the community were reviewed against the Geographic Names Victoria Naming Guidelines and submitted to GNV for pre-approval. Names that do not appear on the draft list did not meet the criteria required by the State Government.
To make a submission for or against one or more of the names listed here you can:
- Make a submission using the link on this page.
- Make a written submission to abreach@hepburn.vic.gov.au.
- Drop off a letter to any of the Customer Service Counters in the Shire.
All submissions must contain your name, contact email and the reason for your objection or support.
The naming process is governed by a series of statutory rules that must be followed. This process includes the following steps:
- Names are reviewed by Hepburn Shire Council officers for compliance with the Naming Guidelines. COMPLETE
- The draft list of names and the rationale for each is submitted to GNV for a first review. Repeat until all names are pre-approved. COMPLETE
- Draft list of names are placed on public exhibition for 30 days. During this time letters of objection or support to one or multiple names can be submitted. CURRENT
- All letters of objection and support are considered. A written letter of advice and response must be provided to all who submitted an objection. Please note that offensive, racist or inappropriate objections may not be considered.
- Objectors have 30 days to make an appeal to Geographic Names Victoria.
- The list of names is reviewed and amended if required. Additional engagement may be required depending on the level and type of objections and the changes required to the list of names.
- Once the names are confirmed, a Naming Report is submitted to GNV along with a justification for each name, demonstration of compliance with the guidelines and evidence of engagement.
- GNV review the report for approval. Once approved the names will be formally gazetted.
The State Government’s Geographic Names Victoria (GNV) has the final authority to approve and gazette place and trail names. This process needs to be undertaken now to ensure readiness for the opening. All names must be compliant with GNV’s naming guidelines.
Geographic Names Victoria (GNV) is the authority that approves and gazettes place, trail and road names. To be considered by GNV, any name proposed must comply with the guidelines. These guidelines are:
Ensuring public safety. Names must not put public and operational safety for emergency response at risk or cause confusion for transport, communication or mail services.
Recognizing the public interest. To preserve our cultural heritage, names should be enduring contributing long-term benefits to the community, businesses and visitors.
Linking the name to the place. Names should have a link to the place to ensure the preservation of our cultural heritage.
Ensuring names are not duplicated. Names must not duplicate or sound similar to another name within a locality or nearby area (30 km radius).
Recognition and use of Traditional Owner languages. Traditional Owner languages are often based on location; languages deeply rooted to the land and offer an ideal opportunity to connect a name to a place.
Names must not discriminate or be offensive. Place names must not discriminate or cause offence.
Gender equality. Gender equality in naming is encouraged. A maximum of 30% of commemorative names should be for males.
Dual Names. Dual names may only be assigned to geographic features.
Using commemorative names. Naming can commemorate an event, person or place. When considering a commemorative name:
oIf named after a person, that person should be or have been held in strong regard by a whole community over time.
oConsent will be sought from surviving family members.
oNames of people who are alive must be avoided because community attitudes and opinions can change over time. A commemorated person should be passed for at least 24 months.
For more information, please visit https://www.land.vic.gov.au/place-naming/understand-the-naming-process/the-naming-rules
The current alpha numeric names will remain as part of the trails full name. The final, gazetted name will be of the format "G5 Name".
Construction on Djuwang Baring continues
Work continues to progress on the remaining portion of trails with completion and opening expected later this year. Please stay out of construction zones to help us meet our opening milestones. We are working hard to get all 60km of trails open in time for the end of the year holidays.
In the interim, Council has been managing and maintaining the trails that are open. While they are new, it is very important to let them 'bed in' properly. What this means is that we may need to close some trails in the wet weather to protect them from damage from use until they have a chance to firm up. These closures are in addition to those that might be necessary due to inclement weather - like wind, bushfire or flooding etc.
Trail closures are noted through signage onsite and at the trailhead as well as social media posts. We will amend the www.djuwangbaring.com website to include a place for announcements. If you have questions, please reach out to tourism@hepburn.vic.gov.au.
Get out there and ride - 32 km opened early!
On 2 August, Council opened 32 km of trail on Djuwang Baring (Creswick Trails) and launched a new website for the network www.djuwangbaring.com. This website contains information relating to planning a ride, trail maps and other need to know information.
Construction on the remaining trails continues to make great progress with the completion date of December 2024 well within sight. While you're out there exploring, please only ride the trails that are open and have clearly marked temporary signage with the trail number, difficulty rating and direction of travel.
Please help us get trails open early!
As we’ve made progress toward completing a cluster of trails that we can consider for an early opening, we’ve had increasing challenges with people bypassing, damaging and otherwise vandalizing site exclusion measures and trespassing in the construction site of Djuwang Baring (Creswick Trails).
Breaking in to the construction site and riding the trails before they are open is causing damage and could lead to injury as the site is an active construction zone and trails signage is not yet in place.
These site exclusion measures are a mandatory part of the project and are intended to maintain the safety of the public, contractor and to protect the trails asset.
Measures may include:
- Signage identifying that the area is construction site, part of the Creswick Trails and/or that trail cameras are in use
- Rope with orange flags (bunting) and/or orange webbing for trail junctions and trail starts to cue people to stay out of the construction area
- Chains across trails that intersect with bush roads where cars may be expected to cue drivers to stay out of the construction area ahead of signage installation
- Thicker rope, segments of temporary fencing or orange webbing at points along the trails in construction to cue trespassers that there are where they are not meant to be and that there are hazards within the construction zone.
If you are removing, damaging or vandalising site exclusion measures and riding the trails before they are open you are responsible for delaying progress on completing trails suitable for an early opening.
If you are removing the safety measures put in place to keep people out of the construction zone and keep them safe, then you are creating a potentially dangerous situation where someone could be hurt.
Trail builders are wasting time repairing the damage instead of getting trails ready for opening.
Before we can consider an early opening of trails, they must be complete and handed over to Hepburn Shire Council and signage must be in place to let users know the trail difficulty rating and how to navigate the network. Please let us get on with our work so that we can open some of the trail network ahead of schedule.
New name for Creswick's trails
Hepburn Shire Council and DJARRA are proud to announce the name for the network of mountain bike trails in Creswick as “Djuwang Baring”, meaning ‘long track’ in Dja Dja Wurrung language. This name will feature on trails signage and promotional materials.
Naming of the approximately 70 trail segments that make up the trails network is progressing. These segments will be named half featuring words in the Dja Dja Wurrung language and half proposed by the community. All naming proposals have now been received and are being assessed against the naming criteria published by the State Government's Geographic Names Victoria office. Once this process has been completed, a draft list of trail names to be released later in the month.
To celebrate this milestone, we've put together a short video showing some of what you can expect to see later in the year when the full Djuwang Baring - Creswick Trails network is open. Please be patient as we work to bring the trails to life by staying out of the construction zone.
Click here for our full media release.
To hear Djuwang Baring spoken, please click here.
Illegal Tree Felling - Help us catch the vandals!
Since the weather has turned cooler, we have noticed a large uptick in the presence of illegal tree harvesting operations taking place within and close to the Creswick Trails project area. This season illegal tree harvesting activities have claimed the lives of 30-50 mature native trees on or near the project construction area. Tree fellers drop the trees mostly at night and come back to cut and remove the wood for use as firewood. Sometimes this wood is sold illegally through local Buy, Swap, Sell sites. Please be wary and only purchase legally sourced wood.
Trees are often felled in-expertly across paths and bush roads. Some of the trees have been felled on partially constructed trails and have damage that will need to be rectified before we can open the trails.
Hepburn Shire Council and our contractors, Dirt Art, have made great efforts to reduce the need to remove native trees as part of our construction and strongly condemn the practice of illegal tree harvesting. If you come upon illegal wood operations, please do not approach or engage with the perpetrators. If you can safely get a vehicle registration, please do so.
Please report any suspicious activities to Victoria Police or directly to the State Government's forest report line. We've included a link here for convenience.
Progress Update - the path to opening
Construction Progress - Moving right along!
Our crews continue to make great progress on trails construction with excellent trail building weather in the last months of Summer 2024. Bridges and platforms are beginning to take shape and some work on the northern skills area has commenced. We've been able to re-purposed some soil from a nearby Council project to enhance what we planned to build, and it looks amazing!
As we move into the cooler months, we will need to be mindful of wet weather that is predicted with the onset of autumn and winter. Completion of the project is still on track for December 2024 or before.
If you're making such great progress, can we open some trails before 2024?
Without question, this is the most common question we receive about the Creswick Trails. We get it, we are excited too! Being able to declare segments or loops of trails complete and ready to open involves more that just the physical infrastructure. Once a logical segment or loop of trails has been nominated as complete and our project team agrees that it meets the criteria for completeness and quality, we can consider the other aspects that need to be complete before we can open any trail publicly.
Other aspects to be considered are installation of directional and wayfindinig signage; emergency services mapping and readiness; managing environmental issues like parking and road safety for trails coming online early; pre-opening permissions and other site specific approvals. To date we do not have any segments or loops of trails that have been nominated for completion. We'd like to be able to open some trails early and before December 2024, however we must make sure that everything is in place before we do.
To help us get to an on time or early completion, please stay out of the construction areas and off the trails in progress. If trails are ridden early and damaged, rectification works are required before these trails can be considered for opening. This takes time and actually delays opening. Staying out of the construction zone is also important to maintain your and our contractors safety as well as to keep progress on track.
Trails Naming - Thank you and Next Steps
Thank you to all who participated in the trails naming process by submitting a naming proposal. We received 158 naming submissions for the 35 trail segments requiring names. Of those 158, only 15 were compliant with the naming guidelines and 99 required more information from submitters to evaluate for compliance with the guidelines. Additional information has been requested where required. Once this information has been received, names will be released to the community for information and comment, if required.
The naming guidelines are set by the State Government. As the State Government is the approval authority for all formal names, we must make sure that we consider the guidelines before we propose names to the State Government for consideration.
Naming sections of the Creswick Trails
We invited submissions from the community to help name segments of the Creswick Trails. Of the 70 individual trail segments and hubs, 50% (35 segments) will carry names in Dja Dja Wurrung language. The remaining 50% will be named by the community with ten names being suggested by Creswick's VOGA cycling club and 25 names from the community and stakeholder groups.
Thank you to everyone who made a submission. This engagement has now closed.
A panel will review the names for compliance with the State Government principles and compile a list of the draft names which will be published on this website.
The draft list will be presented to Council and submitted to the State Government’ s Geographic Names Victoria who will have the final say in determining where and how the names are assigned.
FAQ
Construction Update - February 2024
The construction of the Creswick Trails continues to progress on schedule with the good summer weather. Crews have begun to lay the foundation work for bridges and platforms that will form part of the completed trail network. The footings are square with yellow caps. Underneath the ground there are supports and anchors to secure the platform in place.
As we progress toward opening in December 2024, we begin to look toward naming of the trail segments. Starting on 19 February, we will be making a call out to the community to submit name proposals for the trail segments. There are some guidelines set by the State Government that we will include as part of the call out. So put your thinking caps on!
While we are in construction, please stay out of the construction zone and off any trails that are in construction. Trespassing is not only unsafe for you and our construction crews, it has the potential to damage new trails and slow down our progress.
Construction Update - December 2023
We have a lot to celebrate at the end of 2023 as our network of trails at Creswick begins to emerge. Thank you to everyone who has been a part of the journey from the trails network being an amazing idea in 2015, advocating for the project, supporting funding proposals to State Government, participating in design engagement and now watching as the network comes to life.
We are over halfway through the construction now with work to take an end of year break until early January 2024.
In the early part of 2024 priorities will be continuing to build trails, progressing with implementing bridges and platforms and beginning work around St Georges Lake and Koala Park. Works in these key visitor nodes will mean that some areas will be inaccessible to visitors to allow trails construction to commence. There will be signage onsite as well as more information on Council and Parks Victoria's website regarding any temporary disruptions to the Wallaby or Goldfields Track.
In January, we will be reaching out to you for suggestions for names of individual trails or loops. There are some guidelines published by the State Government that we will need to be mindful of, but we'd love a local flair on trails names.
This engagement will be launched here and through Council's social media platforms.
Wishing you a happy end of year season. Stay safe!
Restricting Access to St Georges Lake Road
A portion of St Georges Lake Rd has been incorporated into the alignment of the Creswick Trails. This portion travels along the northern edge of St Georges Lake and is a windy dirt section of road. Because trails in this location are designed to carry both walkers and cyclists, the road in this location will be closed to cars and trucks with exception of emergency services.
This change will take place in early 2024 and yes not have an end date.
Construction Update - November 2023
Construction of trails has hit the 50% mark with a collective 30 kilometres of trails complete or in progress. This is an exciting milestone and we are very happy with the progress. While we have crossed the halfway point, we are not yet able to open up any trails for use at this time. We've put together some FAQs below with answers to some common questions we've received.
We have 4-6 crews active at any one time, each building elements of the overall alignment. Because of this, the trails we've been working on are are not all in a continuous line. Trails currently in construction are not complete and do not have bridges and platforms in place. This means that they may not be safe to ride. Please stay out of the construction zone to assist Dirt Art, our contractor, to maintain a safe worksite for the public and the trail builders. Time is wasted repairing trails and exclusionary barriers that could be spent building trails!
We have always expected construction of the network of 60 kilometers to take up to two years to build. This places the anticipated completion date for the network as December 2024. This has not changed since we began construction and we are working within this timeline for an on time delivery.
Protection of Native Habitat
In order to construct trails, some native ground cover and trees have to be removed. We are careful during construction and only remove what we have to in order to build trails. The top layers of soil are scraped away exposing the subsoil which is shaped according to the ride experience and challenge of the trails being constructed.
The native vegetation is worked back into the edges of the trails as part of the finishing process. We have also greatly reduced the need to remove native trees through careful ground preparation and micro siting on the ground before constructing and alignment.
FAQ
Creswick Trails Network - Construction Methods
Construction on the Creswick Trails began in late January 2023 with the appointment of construction contractor Dirt Art. Crews will be constructing trails with 4-6 crews active in the bush at any one time. Each crew contains a small excavator and several trails groomers. The machine operator roughs in trails with the groomers following with pruning shears, rakes, shovels and other hand tools to build the trails.
Before construction, each alignment is walked by the team with input from our project experts - an archaeologist, cultural historian and ecologist - as required. Trails are being constructed to the approved trails alignments. You can see maps of the approved alignments in the Document Library on this page.
Hammon Park - Open for play!
Hammon Park Trailhead (Water Street, Creswick) is complete and has been formally opened for use.
In addition to serving as the trailhead for the Creswick Trails, Hammon Park is now a fully self-contained community-focused reserve with cycling being the primary activity, for all ages.
Hammon Park Highlights include:
- Cycling jumps to complement the existing pump track
- Children’s Playspace with undercover sandpit, nest swing, balancing, hopping and bouncing equipment
- Large rope climbing structure
- Undercover BBQ area with double burner electric BBQ and picnic table
- Learn to ride track with a scaled down version of elements found on the Creswick Trails
- Accessible concrete paths
- Garden beds, new turf areas, tree planting and naturalized drainage swales
- Paved area for food trucks and three GPOs for events
- Shaded seating area x2
- Carpark extension to double available parking
- New toilet block with 3 ambulant and one accessible cubicle (with shower)
- Changing Place toilet facility accessible with MLAK key (available upon request according to need)
- Cyclocross stairs and sandpit
- Pedestrian and cycling bridge across Creswick Creek
- Bike wash, Bike repair station, E-bike chargers x2
- Bins, seats and 2 water fountains.
Planning the Creswick Trails
We undertook a substantial amount of planning and design for the Creswick Trails Network. It's all linked here. Please note, any reference to Stage One and Stage Two trails should be understood as a remnant of the historic planning process. The complete Creswick Trails Network is the 60 kilometres currently under construction.
Contact Us
Should you have questions or just want to learn more about this exciting project, contact our Project Manager:
| Name | Alison Breach |
|---|---|
| abreach@hepburn.vic.gov.au |
