TRAIL FORMALISATION PROJECT

Update June 2025

The project is finally progressing again, after many delays since 2019 (bushfires, lockdowns, COVID restrictions, leadership changes, perceived conflicts between park users and management, motivational issues - all sorts of drama).

PGMTB secured Victorian State Government ‘Pick My Project’ funding to deliver 21km of formal mountain bike trails within the Plenty Gorge Park. The Club has worked in partnership with Parks Victoria while the relevant assessments and planning have been completed.

Professional consultants have assessed the trail network around 'The Tank' on Goldsworthy Lane with regard to sustainability, environmental impact, heritage values, and (of course) fun factor.

If you’re looking to get involved, let us know. The Club is always looking for more volunteers to help with the work, either on the ground or behind the scenes. Get in touch via Facebook Messenger, the web form on this site, or direct email to  plentygorgemtb@gmail.com

If you have any Parks Victoria related enquires you can contact the team on 13 1963 or email info@parks.vic.gov.au.

Background

Plenty Gorge Park is a recreation and conservation reserve along the Plenty River, which stretches from Mernda in the north to Greensborough at its southern end. It has reputedly been in use by mountain bikers for at least 30 years now, using a network of informal trails, fire access roads and animal tracks.

It was early in 2012 that a bridge was built by mountain-bikers across Dry Creek, near what has since become known as ‘The Plank’. In October of that year, this bridge came to the attention of Rangers, and the acting Ranger in Charge at the time (Barry Coombes), posted a sign to advise that it was considered an unacceptable safety risk, and the bridge would be removed on 2nd November. Through that sign, the Ranger invited the local mountain biking community to engage with Parks Victoria (PV) directly. On 31 October 2012 Emerson Thistlethwaite contacted key local MTB community figures to propose a meeting with PV.

The first formal Plenty Gorge MTB Club meeting was held on 10 December 2013. PGMTB was registered as an incorporated association on 7 May 2014. The core administrative committee remained largely unchanged for almost a decade, and our financial members grew in number to as many as 110, showing that there is a substantial number of people willing to pay money to bring a formalised MTB trail network into fruition.

In June 2014 PGMTB was involved in community consultation by PV for the then Draft Management Plan for Plenty Gorge Park. In 2018 that Management Plan was approved and published. (Refer: https://parkweb.vic.gov.au/__data/assets/word_doc/0008/731456/Plenty-Gorge-Park-Master-Plan.docx)

Also late in 2018, PGMTB successfully applied to the Victorian State Government for funding under the Pick My Project initiative, securing $195,000 in funding towards the ultimate goal of creating a signposted, formally approved and endorsed MTB trail network. The funding agreement for this grant was finally signed off on 18 June 2019. Since that date, contractors for flora/fauna/environmental and cultural assessments have been engaged.

Where to from here?

Up to this point, the vast majority of the work involved with this effort has been completed by the PGMTB administrative committee, with key issues put to the club’s membership for a vote, and occasional working bees making use of the many offers of feet on the ground with shovels and barrows.

There will be more opportunities for physical volunteers throughout the course of the project over the coming year, and well into the future beyond that, as it will be PGMTB’s responsibility to maintain the formalised trail network once complete.

PGMTB will continue having regular meetings with PV staff. We have engaged with contractors as they completed their assessments, discussing progress and outcomes with PV staff. We provided on-the-ground support by way of walking the trails with the assessors, providing precise mapping data, looking into route variations or alterations as needs arose, and lastly we will be doing all the physical work involved, without any machinery.

We will need your help to get this process completed.

The future

PGMTB was established to advocate for the MTB community, but also to provide a channel for Parks Vic to communicate with riders.

The trails we are aiming to formalise constitute around 17km of the existing informal network, and this is limited to an area close to the Plenty Service Reservoir and Yellow Gum Picnic Area (Goldsworthy Lane and Memorial Drive, Plenty). We know, use and love a great deal more of the existing network, and we plan to advocate for the formalisation of further trails in the future. We will need to establish and maintain a much larger membership and administration to achieve these goals – given the amount of money involved in ‘only’ 17km is far greater than any of us had ever imagined at the outset, there will be fundraising required and grant applications to be written. If we are to be successful in our endeavours, we will need more members and more political influence than we have managed to achieve yet.

parkweb.vic.gov.au