Blackwood West has a lot of gold mining history in amongst the hills and was until fairly recently heavily logged by the timber industry. The Wombat State Forest is more protected now and the timber industry has largely gone.

As the Wombat State Forest has less protection that the Lerderderg State Park to the south east, it hosts a wide variety of recreational pursuits including hiking, four wheel driving and motorcycling. Because of this it has a wide variety of trails where you can literally head off into the forest and explore. There are lots of gravel roads, fire and logging trails and motor bike single track in the area.

Most of the trails to the west of Blackwood described here are based around the Garden of St Erth area but there is an even more extensive stretch of forest trails further west which motor bikes enjoy riding and are just as good for the MTB community. There's a stack of mining history in the area. As well as this there are features such as the old sawmill site at Nolans Creek picnic area and the remains of Balt camp out on camp road which I understand was used to house Baltic refugees at one stage as a work base. Again, like most of Blackwood, get a topographical map and start roaming...

Back Creek	A fire trail heading out from Simmons Reef area with a bit of mining history in the area.
Easter Monday	A ride along the gorge taking in gorge views and a bit of the mining history of the area.
Heritage Ride	A large run of single trail taking in the Great Dividing Trail including the Whipstick Loop and the upper Lerderderg Heritage Track out to the west of the Garden of St Erth. Lots of mining history along this trail if you keep an eye out.
Heritage Ride Extension	An extension of the Lerderderg Heritage Track made up of parts of the GDT and fire trails.
Lookout Circuit	A circuit ride taking in Fosters and McLaughlins lookouts being high points in the area. These lookouts used to be very popular in times past with little gazebos being located at the lookouts.
Otties Elevator	Let's just say that somewhere in timber felling history there must have been a 4WDer called Ottie. A seriously steep track (averages 1:6 slope over 700 metres) and rated black diamond for 4WDers. For MTBers, a good short hike a bike section to gain a stack of altitude (120+ metres) to attack Easter Monday and Fosters Lookout Tracks.
Potters Climb	A short loop with a killer climb with a side track down to the bush grave of Isaac Povey before heading a downhill run down into the gorge area.

Blackwood	Click on link for map showing how to get there.

	There is a map of the general area (based on the Lerderderg Track which is part of the GDT) located to the right of the Blackwood Merchant store.