Spring Gully Trails

Overview

Spring Gully is the home trailhead of the Bendigo Mountain Bike Club and the primary purpose-built MTB hub for Greater Bendigo, located ~5 km south of Bendigo CBD in the suburb of Spring Gully. The trailhead at the end of Wattle Drive (sometimes mapped as Muldoon Reserve, 14 Wattle Drive) sits at the edge of One Tree Hill Regional Park (now part of Greater Bendigo National Park) and offers a small precinct of beginner-friendly infrastructure: a 4.5 km Green Loop, a skills loop, one of the country's largest pump tracks (built by TrailScapes in 2017 with 1,000+ tonnes of imported soil), and a small jump line. From there, riders can drop into a vast interconnected network of rocky, technical "Goldfields-style" singletrack that climbs the ridges of One Tree Hill and stretches all the way to Strathdale.

The terrain is classic central Victorian goldfields: dry, dusty Red Iron Bark and Grey Box bushland over loose rock and quartz scatter. Trails are narrow, rocky and abrasive — local advice is to run higher tyre pressures and consider tyre inserts. The Bendigo MTB Club traces its origins to nine riders meeting at the Spring Gully General Store in 1986, formalising as a club in 1989. The club still uses Spring Gully as its hit-out point for Sunday rides and runs the popular Tuesday-evening Summer Series dirt crits on the Green Loop, regularly drawing 200+ entries.

Spring Gully is a free, dawn-to-dusk style network on public bushland. It has hosted AusCycling MTB National Series XCO rounds (most recently rounds 5 & 6 of the 2022/23 series in April 2023). A 2017 master plan by World Trail proposed a 14-trail / 50+ km network but progress has been slow — the Council handed the master plan to DELWP/Parks Victoria in 2018 and the larger network has not been built out in the decade since. Most current trails on the ground are club-built or legacy bushland tracks, with the Green Loop and pump-track precinct being the only formally-constructed Stage 1 infrastructure.

Location & Access

Address: 14 Wattle Drive, Spring Gully VIC 3550 (Muldoon Reserve trailhead, also referenced as the Wattle Drive trailhead)
Region: Goldfields (central Victoria)
Drive times: ~10 min from Bendigo CBD, ~1 hr 50 min from Melbourne (north-west via Calder Fwy), ~2 hr from Geelong, ~1 hr 15 min from Ballarat
Public transport: V/Line train to Bendigo (~2 hr from Southern Cross). From Bendigo station, ~5 km bike or short taxi to the trailhead. Buses serve Spring Gully but not directly to Wattle Drive.
Parking: Free sealed parking at Muldoon Reserve / 14 Wattle Drive. Additional informal parking along Wattle Drive and at One Tree Hill Lookout (Pioneer Rd, Strathfieldsaye side).
Coords: -36.7993, 144.2867 (verified against Trailhead Coaching, TrailScapes pump-track build page, and Wanderlog: -36.799025, 144.286892). The DB's existing -36.799271 / 144.286675 is correct — do NOT change it.

Note on the lat/lng review: the user's research brief flagged the existing coords as potentially a stale La Larr Ba Gauwa value. La Larr Ba Gauwa is at Picnic Gully Rd, Harcourt (~-37.04S, 144.23E), so this is not the case. Three independent sources put the Wattle Drive trailhead within a few metres of the existing DB value. Coords confirmed correct; no change needed.

Best Season & Conditions

Peak riding season: Year-round; autumn (Mar–May) and spring (Sep–Nov) are sweetest. Summer rideable but hot and dusty (35°C+ days common Dec–Feb).
Wet-weather impact: Trails drain quickly thanks to rocky goldfields surface. Avoid riding for 24–48 hr after heavy rain to protect the surface; otherwise rideable in light rain. No formal post-rain closure programme.
Fire-danger / total-fire-ban impact: Located in the Goldfields-North weather district. On Catastrophic / Code Red fire-danger days the park is officially closed. Ride elsewhere on TFB days during summer.
Snow / alpine season: N/A — Bendigo sits at ~225 m, no snow.
School-holiday surge: Tuesday-evening Summer Series (Oct–Mar) draws 200+ riders to the Green Loop — expect crowds. Weekend mornings busy on the trailhead loops; the wider One Tree Hill network is rarely crowded.

Managing Body & Trail Builders

Land manager: Parks Victoria (One Tree Hill Regional Park, now jointly managed with Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation as part of Greater Bendigo National Park). DELWP / DEECA holds the underlying Crown land. The City of Greater Bendigo manages adjacent reserves, including Muldoon Reserve at the trailhead.
Trail builder / maintainer: Bendigo Mountain Bike Club (volunteer working bees; Green Loop and most singletrack maintenance). TrailScapes Pty Ltd built the pump track and designed the skills loop (2017). World Trail Pty Ltd authored the 2017 master plan; Dirt Art was once flagged as the Stage 2 builder but no Stage 2 has been delivered as of 2026.
Volunteer / dig days: Monthly working bees run by Bendigo MTB Club. Details on the club's Facebook / Instagram.
Donations / membership: Club membership via bendigomtb.com.au. AusCycling-affiliated.

History & Background

1986 — Nine riders begin meeting Sunday mornings at the Spring Gully General Store, riding the bushland tracks of One Tree Hill and Spring Gully Reserve. (Cycling with Eddie, 2009)
1989 — Group formalises as the Bendigo MTB Club, affiliated with the Bendigo and District Cycling Club (BDCC).
1995 — Club introduces night rides.
Feb 2017 — TrailScapes constructs the Spring Gully pump track (1,000+ tonnes of soil), funded jointly by City of Greater Bendigo and Bendigo MTB Club.
Oct 2016 — World Trail Pty Ltd appointed by City of Greater Bendigo to develop a Spring Gully Trail Network master plan.
Aug 2017 — Draft master plan delivered: 14 trails / 50+ km proposed across Spring Gully and One Tree Hill, estimated cost ~$2 million.
Dec 2018 — City of Greater Bendigo (after spending ~$89,000 on the master plan) votes to hand the plan to DELWP and Parks Victoria, citing it doesn't manage the underlying land. Bendigo MTB Club expresses disappointment; future delivery flagged as uncertain (Bendigo Advertiser).
Apr 2023 — Spring Gully hosts AusCycling MTB National Series XCO rounds 5 & 6 (22–23 April 2023) — a marker of the network's race-readiness despite the master plan stalling.
2025–26 — Bendigo MTB Club's Service Centre Summer Series runs eight Tuesday-evening rounds Oct 2025 – Mar 2026 from the Wattle Drive trailhead. AusCycling National Series rounds 3 & 4 are scheduled for La Larr Ba Gauwa (Harcourt) in Dec 2025, not Spring Gully.

Commonwealth Games connection: When Victoria was awarded the 2026 Commonwealth Games, Bendigo was named one of the regional hubs and there was speculation Spring Gully could host MTB events. The Victorian state government cancelled the 2026 Victorian Games on 18 July 2023. The Games were re-awarded to Glasgow without MTB in the initial sport list. As of mid-2026, Spring Gully has no Commonwealth Games legacy.

Cultural significance: The land is Djaara (Dja Dja Wurrung) country. Greater Bendigo National Park (which absorbed One Tree Hill Regional Park) is one of six jointly managed parks under the 2013 Recognition and Settlement Agreement between the Dja Dja Wurrung Clans Aboriginal Corporation and the Victorian Government.