This was news to me but not unexpected.
The AESF news letter has a work day set down for mid April to "Remove rubbish, rehabilitate old access tracks and upgrade walking trails."

So, where does this leave us?

We have a few options that we are exploring. With the State DH round confirmed for the 12th and 13th of May our efforts at the moment have been focused more on a short term solution and we will be taking the race to the Lidsdale short course tracks.

In the long term, The Riffle Range track is unavailable due to shoots being organised there practically every weekend of the year.

The State Mine Board are extremely keen for us to find an alternate route down into their land. A route has been identified on the topographic map that looks doable. This takes in State Forest, council land and State Mine and skirts the boundary with AESF. It would provide a great finish as it winds down the hill directly behind the black smith's building but until we get a change to walk the proposed route we are unsure if a can be created that maintains a good down hill grade.

I hope to inspect it shortly.

We have also begun talks with Centennial Coal about the possibility of utilising another old Colliery site. This has huge potential but may have other issues so we are hopeful but not too expectant.

After hearing about our issues we have also had several private land owners contact us and offer use of their land. These are a little further a field and have issue of their own but we will keep them in mind as back ups.

So. There it is. The current State Mine DH Track will no longer be used for racing.

The good news is that all options above look to have much short shuttle roads. It will be a long process. We need to make sure all the is are dotted and ts are crossed so we don't have a repeat of this saga.

We will keep you informed of any progress

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