Tag: Six Peaks Speak

Celebrating International Mountain Day: Walking on Country in 2025

Join Great Dividing Trail Association (GDTA) Walks to six iconic Mountains

United Nations International Mountain Day (IMD) is celebrated each year on 11 December. Its goal is to raise awareness about the role that mountains play in the lives of people and their importance to our planet. Barry Golding and Clive Willman made reference in their 2024 book, Six Peaks Speak (Chapter 9) to the serendipitous origins of Mountain Day in the US in Autumn 1838, the exact same time that peaks in the Central Highlands of Victoria were being unsettled.

In 2024, DJAARA, for the Traditional Owners generously invited the community to share their very successful IMD celebration, see https://djadjawurrung.com.au/projects/imd/ in the stunning and culturally significant volcanic crater at Lalkambuk / Mt Franklin.

In 2025, during the week leading up to IMD, the GDTA is organising six interpretive loop walks to the summits of six diverse and special mountains in Victoria’s Central Highlands, within three adjoining First Nations. Here are GDTA’s planned 2025 walk offerings celebrating IMD:

  • Sat 6 Dec: Mount Kooyora / Guyura (486m) including Melville Caves in Mt Kooyora State Park, near Dunolly, in central Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Stunning granite landscape. Leader: Barry Golding. 8 km. Medium.
  • Sun 7 Dec: Mount Buninyong / Bonan Youang (745m) in Mt Buninyong Scenic Reserve, south of Ballarat in Wadawurrung Country. Amazing volcanic craters, messmate forest & views. Leader: Tim Bach. 10 km. Medium.
  • Mon 8 Dec: Mount Steiglitz / Kal Kal Karrah (637m) and the glacial deposits at nearby Pykes Creek. The seldom visited Mt Steiglitz Scenic Reserve north of Ballan in Wurundjeri Country accessed via private land. Overlooking extensive First Nations volcanic plains. Leader: Arie Baelde. 2 km. Steep but Easy.
  • Tues 9 Dec (dawn walk): Mt Beckworth / Nyaninuk (629m), within Mt Beckworth Scenic Reserve near Clunes in southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Diverse granite landscape. Leader: Barry Golding. 6 km. Medium.
  • Wed 10 Dec: Wombat Hill (670m), a town walk around historic Daylesford in Dja Dja Wurrung Country. The walk will start with a launch of the Lerderderg Track Walk or Ride Guide and conclude with a picnic in Wombat Hill Botanical Gardens. Leader: Tim Bach. 7 km. Medium.
  • Thurs 11 Dec (IMD) Blue Mountain / Wuid Krruirk (871m), little known mountain within the proposed Wombat – Lerderderg National Park south of Trentham: on the forested Great Divide, between Dja Dja Wurrung, Wadawurrung & Wurundjeri Country. Leader: Arie Baelde. 10 km. Medium.


Registration will be available for any of these IMD walks two weeks prior to each walk via https://www.gdt.org.au/events . Non-walking club members are welcome, but will bring $10 cash on the day to cover GDTA walker insurance.

Six Peaks Speak soft cover published


Revised 16 Oct 2025

Barry Golding and Clive Willman are delighted that our book, Six Peaks Speak: Unsettling Legacies in Southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country, published in Dec 2024 in hard cover, has recently been published in soft cover as well (Sept 2025). This not only makes our book more accessible (soft cover author price AUD$55), but allows us an opportunity to make a few small improvements, as well as adding some positive ‘reader feedback’ notes inside the front cover.


We are really pleased with the high quality of printing in both versions of our book. If you want to order author copies of either version at $55 soft cover; $89 hard cover, please email Barry Golding: b.golding@federation.edu.au (add $12 if required for postal delivery within Australia). NOTE: Paradise Books in Daylesford has both hard cover and soft cover books for sale at retail price [NOTE: ordering copies via the US-based publisher CGRN, including delivery to Australia, will cost $US61.50, approx.= AUD$93 for soft cover, US$86.50, = approx. AUD $131 hard cover).

Presentations about Six Peaks Speak


Since our book was launched, we have undertaken lots of local public talks: in Daylesford, Castlemaine, Bendigo, Maryborough, Maldon, Clunes, Kingston, Creswick, Trentham, Harcourt and Baynton. Here are some forthcoming options in 2025, if you or others are interested.


• Fri 7 Nov 7.30pm: Newham Landcare Group: Newham Mechanics Institute.
• Sat 22 Nov 2pm: Connecting Country AGM: Castlemaine.

Six Peaks Speak Book published!

Six Peaks Speak: Unsettling Legacies in Southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country

Barry Golding with Clive Willman

New Book Published, November 2024

Publication details at:

https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/six-peaks-speak

Summary

  • A compelling storytelling journey in southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country through the eyes of six iconic mountains in central Victoria, Australia.
  • The featured mountains are today called Mt Kooroocheang [near Smeaton], Mt Beckworth [near Clunes], Mt Greenock [near Talbot], Mt Tarrengower [near Maldon], Mt Alexander [near Castlemaine] and Mt Franklin [near Daylesford].
  • An interdisciplinary and intercultural story across time, cultures, contested histories and unsettled relationships, uniquely traversing First Nations and unsettler, history, geology, ecology, anthropology and reserve management.

Hardback book of 432 pages, with 98 full colour images, including 26 maps (15 new maps created by Clive Willman, and 11 historic maps), 60 contemporary photographs, 11 historic photographs and six line drawings by local artist, Belinda Prest. 

  • Researched by Professor Barry Golding AM during 2023 as a State Library Victoria (SLV) Creative Regional Fellow. Meticulously referenced with over 1,100 footnotes.
  • Fresh, new insights into Deep Time with significant contributions to the text and to the geological history, including maps and images contributed by Clive Willman as supporting author.
  • Assistance from Uncle Ricky Nelson, Harley Dunolly-Lee, & Rodney Carter for the Dja Dja Wurrung traditional owners (DJAARA), with research access to the Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Register via a Cultural Heritage Permit.
  • Incorporating new information from Crown Reserve files, SLV, Public Records Office Victoria, local museum libraries and over 70 local and expert informants.
  • Aside from a comprehensive introductory chapter and conclusion, the book includes one chapter about each of the six mountains.

Both authors live on southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country. 

  • Barry Golding AM is an Honorary Professor of Federation University in Ballarat, and lives in Kingston [near Creswick].
  • Clive Willman is a geologist based in Castlemaine.

Published by Common Ground Research Networks (CGRN) in Champaign, Illinois, US, printed in Melbourne, Australia

  • Available as a hard cover book or as a pdf.
  • Hard cover version available now from Barry Golding for AUD$79; add $10 for postage within Australia  (order via b.golding@federation.edu.au ).
  • Purchase in store (RRP approx. AUD$99) at: Stoneman’s Bookroom (Castlemaine), Paradise Bookshop & Tourist Information Centre (Daylesford). BOOM Clunes, Collins on Lydiard (Ballarat) or order online, including via Readings, Carlton.
  • Best online purchase option in Australia via Booktopia.
  • Available for order online now via CGRN bookshop: https://cgscholar.com/bookstore/works/six-peaks-speak (US$75 for hard cover book: total delivered approx. AUD$125; also available as pdf US$25, approx. AUD$38)

Reviews

‘This is a captivating journey, highly timely in national discourse and knowledge gap-filling, in that it brings together lenses rarely seen before. We can benefit from the many vantages and vistas in this book. It reminds us of the importance of place and a desired future where we respect Country and respect one another in it.’ Professor Tony Dreise, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Indigenous Engagement, Charles Sturt University & Gamilaraay First Nations person.

‘The deep and painstaking research undertaken to bring this book together is significant and impressive. The narrative style, interweaving history of the locations with geology make this book unique, quite beautiful and accessible to a broader audience. It involves a discussion about deeply unsettling legacies, highly relevant today in Australia. It is indeed powerful and disquieting at the same time.’ Professor Annette Foley, Professor of Vocational and Adult Education, Federation University

‘Professor Golding presents a cultural and environmental history of landscape in central Victoria, Australia. His vision is for a reconciled relationship on Country. He extends First Nations people respect that has been missing until recently in Australian historiography, providing an important model of how non-Indigenous Australians should engage with traditional owners in research and writing projects.’ Dr Stephen Carey, Senior Research Fellow, Federation University

‘Barry Golding speaks with care and an enduring need for us all to be at our own peaks, not just the hills in this book, their geology, flora and fauna. … Thank you for choosing these Six Peaks that are special to me also, and for being their friend, for they could not ask for anyone better. Dhelkup Murrupuk, we give you good spirit.’ (in book’s preface) Rodney Carter, Dja Dja Wurrung Group Chief Executive Officer

‘Golding and Willman’s thought-provoking book furthers our understandings of land and landscape. The complex legacies, uncomfortable truths, shared heritage and lessons for land management in the present day are explored in this book. In it peak specific stories of the Southern Dja Dja Wurrung Country are revealed in conjunction with a deeply personal and immersive response to this historically and geologically significant region.’ Professor Keir Reeves, Director for the Collaborative Research Centre in Australian History, Federation University Australia