Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail

Beechworth to Bright.

Northern Victoria, Australia.

The post name is slightly misleading in our case as we did the ride in the opposite direction and finished on the banks of the Murray River at Corowa NSW. Day 1 was 75kms, Day 2, 85kms and Day 3, 40kms. The final section is not yet connected to the main rail trail but there are plans to add the missing link when funding is available. The towns along the route are all seeing real benefits from the huge increase in bike touring.

Beechworth

The past few months have been very hot and dry in northern Victoria, this Echidna was the only wildlife we saw apart from birds.

Day 2 Bright to Wangaratta.

This was the longest day at 85kms., with afternoon temperatures in the low 30's it was a long day. The Myrtleford bakery is a good place to stop after 30kms. to stock up on carbs and have a sugar hit before climbing up to Taylors Gap.

 Myrtleford.

Gapsted Winery.

Wangaratta

Day 3. Rutherglen to Corowa loop.

The forecast was for mid 30's so we had an early start, the trail starts in the centre of Rutherglen beside the grain silos. It is only 9kms. to Corowa but there are a selection of rides around Corowa which take you along the banks of the Murray. The area around both towns has some of the best wine producing areas in Australia, most of the wineries have wine tasting and cafes, it's a very pleasant place to ride.

 Rutherglen

 Rutherglen trail head.

Rutherglen has a very good information office with detailed maps of where to cycle and which wineries to visit. We stayed at the Wine Village Motel, clean, comfortable and with very friendly owners. They are bike riders and really make you feel very welcome, there is a lockable storage area to leave your bikes in overnight. The following paragraph was copied from the motel website. Dont worry about flat tyres or mechanical problems with your bike, if anything goes wrong call us and we’ll come and collect you within a 30km radius of the motel.  We also provide secure bike storage and carry a range of spare tubes and parts.   Wine Village Motel details here.

Photos were taken using a Nikon D80 with a 35mm lens and a Nikon S9100. Probably a well known fact to others but new for me was a fix for a problem I had with the S9100. In bright sunlight when I turned the camera 90 degrees for portrait photos the screen went black, turn it back to landscape and it worked perfectly. A call to Nikon solved the problem, they asked if I was wearing sunglasses when I was using the camera, I was. Remove the sunglasses and the screen comes back to life, both the glasses and the screen are polarised and at 90 degrees the image is blacked out. Apparently  iPhones and iPads have a similar issue, not having either of those I haven't encountered it before.