Community briefing in Bendigo
Are you interested in riding or walking on rail trails? Ever wondered what trails can do to benefit your business or community economically? If you are in or close to Bendigo, join us at a community briefing on Monday 13 July.
At the request of the Friends, the City of Greater Bendigo is hosting the briefing to discuss the development of the Bendigo-Kilmore rail trail:
When: Monday 13 July, 7.30 pm
Where: RL Campbell Theatrette, library building 279 Hargreaves Street, Bendigo
- The Friends’ will explain their long-term vision.
- Council will outline its plans for the trail.
- We’ll have a guest speaker with experience of other successful trails.
- And we’ll be looking for more hands to join the committee – there’s lots to be done.
Contact the convenor, Garry Long, if you have any questions about the meeting (phone 0409 565 404).
Recent Friends’ activities in June
Meeting with Bendigo council
Garry Long, Ken Hanson and Helen Cronin met with the Directors of City Futures and Community Wellbeing, as well as recreation and assets staff. Council had done some work in 2007 on planning an extension trail from Axedale to Heathcote.
A number of options are being considered to cross the Campaspe River at Axedale, and proposed that the next trail extension might start at Heathcote and come back towards Axedale since parts of that section may be easier to develop.
Council is now preparing a formal proposal, drawing on its previous work on the project, that can be used to seek future funding. The council also agreed to make contact with Mitchell Shire to open the conversation about running the trail all the way to Kilmore.
Presentation to the Bendigo Tourism Board
Garry Long and Helen Cronin made a presentation to the Tourism Board highlighting the tourism potential of long-distance and well marketed rail trails. The proposed trail could form the back bone of a strategy to market cycling in the region more widely, including assets like the Bendigo Bushland Trail. The presentation was well received with some pertinent questions asked. We left them with a two-page summary of the presentation (PDF 176kb).
Railway history
Garry Long has been speaking with two people who remember the Heathcote Junction to Sandhurst railway. One is a woman lived in Axedale for many years and is currently digging through her personal archives for material about the railway. The other is a railway buff who rode the last train ever to run on the line.
As the project progresses we’ll be looking for more oral and material history of the line. Keep that in mind if you’re talking to any old timers or people with an active interest in the history of the region.
