Bicentennial National Trail
multi-use trail extending from Victoria to Queensland, Australia
The Bicentennial National Trail (BNT), originally known as the National Horse Trail, is one of the longest multi-use, non-motorised, self-reliant trails in the world, stretching 5,330 kilometres from Cooktown, Queensland, through New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory to Healesville, 60 km north-east of Melbourne. This trail runs the length of the rugged Great Dividing Range through national parks, private property and alongside wilderness areas. The BNT follows old coach roads, stock routes, brumby tracks, rivers and fire trails. It was originally intended for horses, but is these days promoted also for cycling and walking, though it is not yet entirely suited to these two activities.
History
The trail was initiated and planned by the Australian Trail Horse Riders Association. The Association spent many years planning and negotiating a route that linked up the mustering, brumby tracks, pack horse trails, historic coach roads and stock routes, thus providing an opportunity to legally ride the routes of stockmen and drovers who once travelled these areas.
The development of this idea was left to a committee led by R. M. Williams and coordinated and planned by Brian Taylor in co-operation with the Australian Trail Horse Riders Association affiliated clubs, farmers, landowners and government agencies. Dan Seymour was sponsored by R.M. Williams to find a route along the Great Dividing Range, and to promote enthusiasm for the proposal. Seymour volunteered to ride the Trail and set off from Ferntree Gully, Victoria in February 1972 with two saddle horses, a packhorse and 'Bluey', his blue heeler cattle dog. The Association provided Dan with encouragement during this lengthy journey.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Bicentennial National Trail” as multi-use trail extending from Victoria to Queensland, Australia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as multi-use trail extending from Victoria to Queensland, Australia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4903558. VIAF identifies the subject as 133028262. Authority coordinates are -37.038, 146.934. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bicentennial National Trail” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.