Trip Report: Murray to Mountains Rail Trail

We had a weekend set aside, a meeting point (Albury), a theme (cycle-camping), but no plan for how we would actually spend our time. While convened on a park bench, chowing through 3x pizzas and 2x cash-only HSPs, our group of three picked a local rail trail to explore for the following two days.

This is the abridged story of our excellent weekend cycling the Murray to Mountains rail trail in early May.

Day 1 (Yak to Bright to Everton)

I woke up after sleeping very poorly in a fancy $1000 MSR tent. Turns out I left the vestibule door open before falling asleep, go figure. However, I knew two things: I would soon be eating a tasty Pumpkin Curry pie, and I had a weekend of cycling with my mates before me. Two very good things.

After eating our hearty breakfast we started our cycle up the road aiming for Bright (roughly 100km away). Less than 10 minutes in we suffered our first and only mechanical. A flat tire. Flashbacks to our first ever 100km cycle (done over 10 hours, and with 10 flats) many years ago ensued, I was deeply and needlessly concerned for the rest of the day.

While the legs warmed up, we bantered and enjoyed the weather as it morphed from a Melbourne spitting rain to some Canberran dry sun. We broke out of the Yak hole and started flying downhill to our next climb into Beechworth. When cycling I go to pretty great lengths to avoid riding on tarmac with cars, something my friends from Canberra are more comfortable with. During this descent I think the rail trail benefits became more apparent: No cars to buzz you, generally pretty scenery, and train-based history.

Despite the rail trail name it’s pretty easy to forget that rail trails actually once had trains on them, so it was quite nice to run into the old Everton station. Having done minimal research before setting off on our route we found it quite exciting that it was still standing (and upon reflecting we later realised that we’d passed another still-standing station in Beechworth). The vibes of this station were immaculate and even further increased our jovial spirits. We made like trains and shunted ourselves from the Everton->Yak line, to the Wangaratta->Everton->Bright line (when on rail, as they say).

Reaching Everton meant it was (basically) all uphill to Bright. Fortunately, for the most part, it was the sort of uphill which you forget is uphill. And so you just chug along enjoying the views, maybe in the back of your mind wondering why the flat is just that little bit harder than normal.

We stopped at a bakery in Myrtleford, and each consumed a medley of bakery food. I had a burger, an apple crumble slice, and shared a bowl of wedges. My fellow travellers were pleased my policy vis-à-vis cooking/assembling each meal myself while travelling had been put on hold for the weekend.

From this point, we loosely followed the beautiful Ovens River which leads upstream into the mountains, with the bike trail snaking along its shore. On a slightly warmer trip I may have taken a dip, but not this weekend!

Battling a light head wind we tried to lay some serious tracks into Bright, overall we had made good time and were all feeling in good form. Our resident “Rizz Master” (not me) noticed a beer smell and started chatting up a factory worker to see if he could get any beer (turns out they were a hops grower, so no beer to give away). Unfortunately it was quite a smoggy day so we were denied a view of my favourite mountain range (sorry Kosci, it’s not you it’s me).

We were elated to learn of the existence of The Bright railway museum, and then subsequently shattered to hear it had closed just before our arrival! The station, however, was visible from the outside and looked quite majestic. We had considered originally continuing on 20km to Smoko (a favourite campsite of mine), but decided to turn around at this point and see if we could make some progress back towards Yak. We were basically doing an out-and-back on the rail trail with Bright as the turn around point, so any distance we covered tonight would be distance we didn’t need to do tomorrow. With loose plans to stay in a dodgy shelter (which Ned Kelly had apparently passed through) or a train station, we decided to see how far we could make it.

We lit up our bikes like Christmas trees as the sun set and headed in towards Myrtleford once more (this time running with the Ovens river), seeking dinner, 30 bonus kilometers passed quickly. One burger, and one conversation on the existential reason as to why we were going to cycle in the dark instead of finding somewhere to camp later (A: likes pain, B: confused, Harrison: is having fun so whatever).

The night cycling brought back memories of late night runs while training for IB, and so we continued longer than we thought we would, all the way to Everton where there was a (legal) free campsite. Another 30 bonus kilometers.

Overall, we clocked 160kms that day making it the longest distance covered I’d covered single ride. I wasn’t feeling too poorly either.

I went to bed in my trusty $150 Nature Hike Outdoors tent, with no extra luxurious vestible for me to forget to close and slept very well. Perfect.

Day 2 (Everton to Yak)

We woke up in the morning, packed up camp, and dropped into the Everton General Store to buy some breakfast. After consuming some Egg and Bacon rolls (and, for one of us, a milkshake) we started the longest (but not too long) climb of the trip up into Beechworth. Although, generally, if a train can do it it can’t be too bad¹.

While the legs took a little longer to warm up than the day before, I found myself spinning up the hill at a comfortable pace, reflecting on how nice it was to get away with my mates and have an adventure. Our remaining 40km to Yak passed in no time…

And then, too soon, we found ourselves in Yak. We each ate a Pumpkin Curry pie.

Reflection

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of engaging me in a conversation about Australia’s under-appreciated Alpine environments, you’ll know how much I treasure being able to get out in this area of the world. While we not in “true alpine”, this sub-Alpine area was still stunning. It felt like being back in Canberra to me, and having a jolly time cycling with my Canberra friends made me almost miss the place!

Going into the weekend I knew I was likely going to be doing some paved riding, whereas for most of my recent trips I’ve been spending a lot of time on dirt. My 2.6inch Vittoria Mezcal tires were decidedly overkill, but alas, this was the bike I had. Before jumping on the train, I pumped my tires much higher than I normally would and was super impressed with how little I felt my massive rubber contact points affected my enjoyment of the track (physics doesn’t lie I suppose).

Adding to my “spinning is winning” philosophy, this trip I further practiced a more “careful” approach to nutrition. Basically: snacking more. Turns out eating keeps me happier and energetic for longer. I borrowed a stem bag for this trip, and having snacks accessible to eat while riding was a game changer. Not sure how I’ll go back.

Final route

This is a sealed rail trail, you can ride basically anything on it. We had a road bike, a touring bike, and my rigid Mountain Bike. It’s very accessible on the VLine from Melbourne (a 3 hour train ride to Wangaratta). There’s food everywhere, and water everywhere, and camping everywhere.

I’ve annotated the route below with what we used. There’s plenty of other facilities though.