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Register for news updatesOrganising your rail trail ride …. and the East Gippsland Rail Trail
You are looking longingly at one of Australia’s longer rail trails and dreaming of a multi-day ride with local meals and accommodation, but how do you handle the logistics? Public transport may offer solutions in some cases, car shuffles in others. Central accommodation can work for “out and back” rides but they absorb more time, with two conflicting viewpoints – “why am I riding the same track twice?” and “it always looks different when you go the other way, like a new trail!”
Victoria has a number of suitable trails where central accommodation works well, like the Murray to Mountains and the East Gippsland Rail Trails. Multiple trails emanating from towns make these attractive – but you still have to ride back at the end of the day, in most cases, and sometimes when you are quite tired.
The rising popularity of rail trails has encouraged a number of businesses to support riders in their ventures, providing a number of different options. They can typically turn an “out and back” day of 80 km, into a 40 km morning ride, followed by a winery lunch, and a return shuttle to accommodation for the riders and bikes, in time for dinner and a trivia night – and leave more time and energy to appreciate the history and natural beauty of the trail. It requires some acceptance of group timing and dynamics – and requires satisfying the different performance and needs of e-bike and manual bike riders – but has the opportunity of increasing enjoyment significantly.
Specific events and businesses offering general support for many trails can be found on the “GET AROUND” section of the Trail Descriptions on the RTA website.
To give an example, supported events can be found on the “GET AROUND” section of the East Gippsland Rail Trail Trail Description. One event listed provides central accommodation at Nowa Nowa, and there are three riding days which enable participants to ride most of the length of the East Gippsland Rail Trail, together with the Gippsland Lakes Discovery Trail.
The Discovery Trail itself is a delightful trail following an old tramway – predominantly downhill – along the Mississippi Creek to the outskirts of Lakes Entrance. The trail’s northern start is off the Bruthen/Nowa Nowa section of the EGRT.
There is another unsung benefit of participating in a supported event – once you stump up the entry fee, it becomes harder to overwrite the ride with something else in the diary!
Of course, you can always ride the EGRT and Discovery Trails unsupported, but you will probably need a couple of extra days and accommodation in Bairnsdale and Orbost unless you are very fit, or have an e-bike with sufficient range.
The EGRT itself is very good for most of its length. It is a mix of mostly good gravel and some packed earth and is very well drained. There is a 15km stretch of rocky trail towards Orbost, but miracles in ride quality and control can be achieved by dropping tyre pressure from a (bitumen) 80 psi to (a trail) 30 psi! Also, as with most trails in heavily wooded areas, you need to keep an eye out for branches lying on the trail.
There are some really impressive vistas on the trail, as well as the different and spectacular trestle bridges at Stony Creek and Wairewa Rd. At the Orbost end, the trail terminates at the iconic 770m Snowy Floodplain Bridge, currently under restoration.
Some parts of the trail are quite remote – while an unsupported ride has more of an element of adventure, I was comforted by the fact that the” sweepers” from the support team would be somewhere behind me, and I could get a lift when I “hit the wall”….
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One comment on “Organising your rail trail ride …. and the East Gippsland Rail Trail”
Driving down from NSW, I organised a neat plan to tackle the East Gippsland Rail Trail some years ago. Arriving at Orbost, I checked into my motel room at 2pm and left my bike and bags there before driving onto Bairnsdale, where I left my car (containing my other luggage) at the motel I’d booked a room in for two days hence. Then I got the late afternoon bus back to Orbost for Night 0. Day 1 was on the trail south from Orbost, with a detour down to Lakes Entrance for the night (Night 1). Day 2 was uphill from Lakes Entrance back onto the trail, on to Bruthen, detour to Swan Reach, then back onto the trail to Nicholson and into Bairnsdale for the night (Night 2). I only needed to carry on the bike enough gear for one night (Lakes Entrance), so I managed it with one bag (from memory). I had one magpie attack so it must have been late Spring.
Cheers,
Dennis