Fancy a bit of recreation on the Lauriston Reservoir in your tinny or kayak?
You’ll have to navigate a “lunar landscape” to reach the water first, local fishermen say.
David Taylor is among a group of reservoir users critical of a boat ramp that was supposedly designed to enable on-water recreation.
“When the government and VicFish opened up these areas for this sort of stuff they could have done a half-decent job,” he said.
“All the way to the water there’s uneven rocks and then boulders at the water’s edge!
“Somebody is going to come down here one day and roll an ankle, or you can imagine with a boat, someone walking backwards, they’re going to go arse over tit and smash their head on the rock.
“A lot of fisherman are all saying the same thing – ‘oh have you seen the ridiculous launching ramp at Lauriston?'”
Mr Taylor said access to the water at the Upper Coliban Reservoir was far superior and he wondered whether the set up at Lauriston was deliberate.
“The people I’ve spoken to think it’s a deterrent because this is the town water supply and they want to put you off that much that we’ll go somewhere else,” he said.
“A lot of people in town think you drink it right from the dam!”
Coliban Water’s manager of community operations Mick Dunne said access to the reservoirs to include on-water recreation was extended in 2019.
“Since then, we have made a number of onsite improvements,” Mr Dunne said.
“We appreciate this feedback from the community about the facilities at the reservoir.
“Our reservoir team will investigate alternatives to the boulders, and install crushed rock to smooth the path for users walking their kayak, canoe, or small portable craft down to the water.”
