In December 2024, Moyra Le Blanc Smith set out to walk the Goldfields Track after a routine breast screen detected cancer. After having surgery and radiation treatment, she wanted to set herself a personal challenge. As she loved long distance walking in the bush, the Goldfields Track felt like a natural fit.
With her husband, Pete, and Border Collie puppy, Lizzie, she set off from Geelong to Ballarat to camp for a few days. ‘December was a great time to start the walk,’ she said. ‘Warm weather but not too hot, and still plenty of running water in the rivers for Lizzie to cool down.’ They walked down the slopes of Mt Buninyong and through Ballarat, and over the following weeks they continued to make visits to the region to walk more of the Track.
Moyra continued hormone treatment for breast cancer, and it began to affect the joints in her legs. She spent the afternoons stretching as much as she could to care for them. When she reached Creswick, it felt momentous. ‘I couldn’t believe I’d walked that far! The Eureka Track was complete. The scenery and Goldfields Track were so enjoyable all the way.’
However, by Christmas she faced a disappointing setback. The pain in one knee became so great that doctors advised her she had a torn meniscus and would need surgery, scheduled for January. The rehabilitation of her knee took a long time. She walked on crutches for six weeks and then underwent intense treatment with an osteopath. She had to learn to walk again. It was six months before she felt strong enough to tackle the ups and downs of uneven terrain and got back onto the Goldfields Track.
Once back, she started to walk along the Wallaby Track. ‘It felt so joyous to continue the walk where we’d left off so many months before,’ she said. Moyra would walk the Goldfields Track at every available opportunity. Sometimes a quick day trip and sometimes a longer stay. She loved the peacefulness of the bush and the delight of discovering parts of Victoria that she’d never known.
‘Walking on the open road near Dean, I found it interesting to look out across the landscape to distant, extinct volcanoes. And through a part of the Wombat Forest, my grandchildren, their parents and dog joined us for a day of walking. We loved snuggling up in warm coats and beanies and walking through the forests and puddles together.’ Pete and other family members helped with the car shuffle on the forest tracks to bring the walkers’ cups of hot soup, lunch and tea.
Moyra reflects, that ‘…it was a very carefree way to walk with not much to carry other than a bottle of water. In winter we could walk all day without worrying about the heat.’ For many years, while visiting Lake Daylesford, Moyra would look at the sign at the end of the lake announcing, ‘Goldfields Track – Ballarat’ and wonder what it would be like to walk it. It was a warm summer day in December by the time she reached Daylesford, and it felt like a huge achievement.
From there, she was on the Dry Diggings Track. The section of the Track from Twin Bridges to Tipperary Springs was closed due to flood damage, but there was an alternative route on the opposite side of the river. Moyra and Pete loved this section – the peaceful bush, twists and turns, and stepping stones over the river. So much so, that she went back and walked it again with the grandchildren during the school holidays. She continued on past Hepburn Springs, and the scenery continued to be varied and interesting. The forests changed from big trees to drier, rockier bush. She thought about the amount of effort gold miners had gone to, to get water. They dug water races for many kilometres with just basic tools. ‘I tried to imagine what it would have been like working and living here digging for gold and hoping for a lucky strike,’ she said.
At Mount Franklin, they camped for a few days. With the weather warming up as the season changed, Moyra found the best thing to do was start walking early in the cool of the morning and stop in the hot afternoons. They walked another day with their grandchildren, happily exploring the Track, who found it interesting to find out what a ‘mine shaft’ was and learning about gold digging history.
Around this time, another setback occurred. Pete suffered injuries from a car accident and needed rehabilitation. The walk was on hiatus. However, as the summer days rolled into the cooler autumn, Moyra felt the urge to walk. She decided to do a three-day trip with Lizzie but without her trusty support crew, Pete. This meant she walked and backtracked to pick up the car, but not covering as much of the Track.
She made the most of the lovely days and made a little progress. One afternoon, Moyra and Lizzie walked into Castlemaine Railway station alone, and it once again felt like a huge milestone. From her walk, Moyra became increasingly amazed by the extent of the gold mining activity that had occurred in and around Castlemaine. ‘There is so much history to see and learn about here,’ she said.
She then started the fourth and final leg of the Goldfields Track – the Leanganook Track, heading north for Bendigo. Before long Pete was on the mend and back to driving again. Moyra increasingly felt the need to complete the Goldfields Track before her 70th birthday later in the year. Autumn had made way for winter and cool walking days.
They planned a camping trip at Mt Alexander – the camping area was open having escaped being burnt in the January bushfires earlier in the year. However, the rest of Mount Alexander Regional Park was closed, and she followed the designated detour track through Harcourt. ‘I was intrigued to see and follow the Coliban Water Channel, which I walked alongside for days,’ she said. ‘And I was amazed at the engineering feat of building it all to work purely via gravity fed.’
As Moyra got closer to Bendigo, she began to wonder if it would be possible to finish the walk on this trip. They extended their stay by one day and it turned out to be a glorious sunny winter’s day. It was easy walking alongside the channel on the even vehicle track. Moyra, Pete and Lizzie managed a good pace, falling into a comfortable rhythm of walking. ‘The last day was so enjoyable – we just walked and walked, closer to the finish. When we got really close and I realised that we would be finishing, I felt overcome with emotion. We took photos at Bendigo Railway Station – the end of the Goldfields Track and I felt overwhelmed to think that I had finished,’ she said.
It took 18 months to complete the 210 kilometres of Goldfields Track. But Moyra enjoyed every bit of it. ‘Whilst I set out hoping for a physical challenge – it became far more than that. The challenge of being persistent through, which was at times, overwhelming adversity was unexpected but added to the sense of having achieved something momentous,’ she said.
The goldfields history is a huge part of the story of Victoria and Australia and Moyra is glad to have learnt more about it. ‘It’s been so much more interesting to learn about history by being in the place where it took place and seeing it for myself,’ she said. ‘I’ve also seen and become familiar with parts of Victoria I hadn’t known before.’