Wagga & NE Victoria

On the 1st April, 2017 my two brothers, John & Steve, and I did a 6 day tour starting and finishing in Wagga taking in some of north east Victoria. The ride also gave us a chance to try out some of the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail. This particular rail trail provides up to 96km of off road riding.

We drove to Wagga with our bikes. We would have preferred to use the XPT but as you have to essentially dismantle your bike to get it on that train it wasn’t worth it. (What a missed tourist opportunity this is for the railways- take the train to Wangaratta, ride the rail trails and then train it home again.)

This was a perfect time of year to be on the road with daytime maximums at 25C and 10C over-night, with blue skies every day. And it was good to know it was still raining in Sydney at the time – hehehe.

This would be a good tour for anyone new to touring. The roads are relatively flat – in the 6 days we only had to drop to our small chainrings on 2 small climbs; and the scenery is great - you get farmland, vineyards and historic towns. A lot of the riding is on back roads, and most of it could be, if you didn’t mind retracing your steps some places in the loop to avoid main roads.

We rode on two rebuilt 1980s touring bikes and a brand new Vivente. We stayed in caravan park cabins and ate at pubs and cafes so our touring loads weren’t too heavy. Overall our accommodation and food came to $77 per person per day, drinks extra!

I had put the routes on my GPS but I also carried the NRMA map of the area and Rooftop’s Beechworth-Albury-Wangaratta Adventure map. Paper maps were useful as we had to diverge from the planned route in some places.

We would set off about ½ hour before sunrise and arrive at our destinations between 10am and noon. I like rising this early, the air is usually still and crisp, the traffic is very light and it is always something to see the sun rise. Of course this works well if the route is north/south but is not so good if you are riding due east.

Day 1: Wagga – Mangoplah – Cookadinia – Morven – Culcairn (84km)

Wagga has a few suburbs to negotiate before leaving on the Holbrook road. The route takes you through low lying hills to the east of the Olympic Highway and the main rail line which you see in the distance as you ride. Mangoplah is the first village to be reached. It has a small shop which hadn’t opened when we arrived. Toilets are at the village hall. The ride continues on country roads with little traffic. Morven is the next village and from there it is a short distance to Culcairn. We arrived at Sunday lunchtime and headed for the bakery which was packed. It was obviously the place to drive to for a Sunday outing.

Day 2: Culcairn – Walla Walla – Burrumbuttock – Howlong – Rutherglen (86km)

This ride is on back roads again and takes you through a couple of villages on the way. Walla Walla was a prosperous looking village which was settled by German immigrants in the 1800s. It has the largest Luthern church is Australia and is home to a St Paul’s a Lutheran boarding school.

The next village along with a shop and toilets is Burrumbuttock where you turn onto the road to Howlong. We really enjoyed the Culcairn – Howlong section of this ride. The road is flat, but not dead straight and we were able to put head down and bums up and get up some speed.

We crossed the mighty Murray River into Victoria at Howlong and then joined a busy road to the wine and tourist centre of Rutherglen.

Day 3: Rutherglen –Boralma (Hume Highway crossing) – rail trail (off Tarrawingee Rd) - Everton (57km). Plus Milawa loop (24km).

We rode out of Rutherglen and joined a dirt road to take us south. Unfortunately the road had disintegrated into bulldust and our bikes came to a standstill. So we cut across to the tar of Federation Way just in time to catch the morning commuter rush going to Wangarratta. It was back on the dirt at Boralma to cross the Hume Highway and then on tar back roads again until we meet up with the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail.

Victoria has a number of rail trails. Rails trails are disused railways that have been converted for bicycle and hiking. The trail here has a tar base with aggregate rolled into it which provided a good surface to ride on. A number of the old stations had been converted into toilets and have covered eating areas and watering points. We were very impressed with the trail and facilities. The only worry I had was that in places trees were growing close to the trail and you could see roots starting to make inroads into the surface. Hopefully the Victorian government has a maintenance fund.

We followed the trail to Everton. After getting settled we rode down to Milawa which is wine centre based on the Brown Brothers vineyard. Brown Brothers facilities very well set up for tourists to eat, drink and be merry. While we were there about 10 people arrived at the vineyard on bicycles but none seemed to be touring.

It was then back to Everton for the night. Everton was where the cyclist was shot back in February, something the locals in the pub were a little too gleeful in telling us about.

Day 4: Everton – (rail trail) - Beechworth – Leneva – Albury/Lavington (71km)

From Everton we rode up hill to Beechworth. As we were on the rail trail the gradient was fine. I’ve ridden into Beechworth on the roads and I remember it was tough going so thumbs up for the rail trail.

Beechworth is full of old buildings and parks and well worth taking time to look around. We breakfasted at the extremely popular bakery. It latest offering must the ultimate of Australian fusion food: a chicken parmi pie.

It was a “wheeee” inducing ride out of Beechworth over several kilometres of downhill. From there the riding was some ups and downs until Wodonga/Albury was reached and we joined heavy urban traffic. We ended up crossing the Murray River on the Hume highway.

Day 5: Albury – Gerogery – Culcairn – Henty (67km)

From Albury it was back roads to Gerogery where we joined the Olympic Highway through to Culcairn and then on to Henty. The traffic along the highway was OK and mainly respectful.

I did however manage to get a puncture. We had 2 punctures on this trip. Both were caused by catsheads/three-cornered-jacks. One was through a Vittoria Randoneur tyre and one through a Schwalbe Marathon tyre – which just goes to show.

At Henty we stayed at the B&B. We were the only people staying in the huge ex-hotel. The owner gave us a great deal of 2 rooms with breakfast for $70. We had a good chat with the owner whose day job is driving the local school bus doing the rural pick-up run.