Back Roads and Trails for Touring

Here is an opportunity for cycle touring in regional Victoria, using country roads and trails. You could choose to share this exciting experience with friends, or just go do it on your own.

As an exploring adventure, this route takes you right into small country towns, for coffee and muffins at a bakery/cafe, enjoying a pub lunch, perhaps doing a tasting at a winery or boutique brewery, or explore history relating to the gold rush era. Pitching your tent in a caravan park, renting a cabin overnight, arriving at a pre-booked local B&B or other accommodation options, one of these could be your choice.

While the proposed Wallan to Heathcote Rail Trail is in the planning stages by the Mitchell Shire Council, this will become a trail providing a continuous off-road trail from Wallan to Bendigo via the O’Keefe Rail Trail when fully constructed in the future. There are other touring options right now, to connect ‘Melbourne with the Bush’, and this country road/trail route is definitely one of those options!

Passing through regional Victoria, this route includes both gravel and sealed country roads, the O’Keefe Rail Trail, plus options of exploring via shorter trails like the Kilmore Creek Trail, McIvor Creek Trail and Bendigo Creek Trail. The route’s southern start/finish point is the Wallan Railway Station, to utilise the V/Line train service or road transport via the Hume Freeway. The northern point is right in Bendigo’s city centre at its Charing Cross area, a short distance from the Bendigo Railway Station or road transport options via the Calder Freeway/Hwy

Being able to break the journey in Wallan, Kilmore, Pyalong, Tooborac, Heathcote, Axedale and Bendigo, these are all individual highlights that make this regional route very attractive. This choice is definitely “a must do”, when you and your friends are able to!

Also within the Greater Melbourne’s northern area, there are options such as the Galada Tamboore Pathway, the Metropolitan Ring Rd Path, the Merri Creek Trial and other ‘metro’ connected off-road trails.

This link to Ride With GPS provides a map and gradient details for the 144kms route (as per above, yet with more details), as well as a download facility (FIT and GPX files) for your smart device to assist with route navigation.