Blay said the Bundian Way was taking on a life of its own now.

"It has meaning as much for the Aboriginal community as it does for the overall regional and Australian community," Blay said.

His book was only one aspect of the Bundian Way, which he said was a substantial Aboriginal community effort over very many years.   

BJ Cruse, chair of the Eden Local Aboriginal Land Council, welcomed the audience to country, and described the role Aboriginal people of the region retained their stories of the old pathways.

Mr cruse also welcomed the collaboration with Blay over more than a decade that resulted in the Bundian Way and its listing as an item of NSW heritage.

Launching the book, University of Sydney history professor, Mark McKenna, said Blay's search for the Bundian Way was not a search for paths that were exclusively Aboriginal.

"He sees the evidence of tracks used in the past by explorers, surveyors, and settlers with their stock," Professor McKenna said.

"He is actually looking for what had already become a shared track from soon after the British arrived - ancient ways that meet and diverge and meet again." 

Blay said On Track was not a guide-book to walking the Bundian Way.

"On Track shows us that we if we are a community, then we are not just bound in this place at this moment in time, but also bound by the legacy of all those people who walked before us and all those who will come after us," he said.

Blay said work was progressing well along the Bundian Way pathways and that the Twofold Bay sections might be opened later this year or early next. 

The major difficulty was resources, he said, adding that greater assistance from the state government would be required if the whole route was to be opened in the near future.

"Its route will become public infrastructure and promises to become an important international drawcard for the region," he said.

Copies of the book are on sale at the Eden Newsagency, and online from www.netspeed.com.au/seforests/books.htm