Prior to arriving for the tour, I was on a cruise with the rest of the family and had a day in Melbourne. I used part of this day of shore leave to collect the bike and take it around the corner to the hotel – so I was very relieved that this first part of the logistics worked.
This trip was originally planed to travel the entire distance from Tallarook (where the line branched from the main North East line) to Mansfield, while also exploring the branch to Alexandra, overnighting in the latter location. The railway itself opened between Tallarook and Yea in 1883, then being built in stages to Mansfield by 1889. At Cathkin a branch was built to Koriella in 1890, and was extended to Alexandra in 1909.
Passenger services on the line were discontinued in May 1977, and the line, including the Alexandra Branch were closed in November 1978. The line was quickly dismantled after closure.
Local and state funding was secured to convert the disused alignment into the rail trail. An initial stage was completed in 2010, with the full trail being officially opened on 1 June 2012.
The first part of the trip involved using Vline to transport me from Melbourne to Tallarook, which went off without a hitch. In fact the bike commute from Brunswick to the city was much faster than I anticipated, so I was able to get an earlier train. The next logisitical test was to see if my friend showed up at Tallarook. He was travelling through Victoria without modern communication devices such as Mobile phone, so I had no idea if something had come up to prevent the meet. However, it came to pass that the plans survived and he showed up at Tallarook in sufficient time to commence the ride about half an hour early.
This part of Victoria is very scenic, and despite the summer dryness, the countryside along the trail was most pleasing. In many places, the trail runs adjacent to the attractive Goulburn River. After about 20 km of travel, my friend turned back to return to his car, and to later meet me at Alexandra. For the rest of the trip, I would be riding solo.
Even on the first day, I had to enact contingency plans, because the above mentioned friend could not stay for as long as originally proposed – he had a sick mother back in Cairns and had to leave for home first thing the next morning, which left a bit of a hole in the transport logistics. The solo riding gives you plenty of time to think, and at my lunch break in Yea, I was on the phone to some bike transport people to see what options there were. I could have left the original plans largely intact, however the use of these commercial operators came with significant cost for a single person (for a group of 4 – 6 these costs become more reasonable). So I decided to abandon the Alex to Mansfield ride, and bum a lift over to Bright and redo that trail. Once this decision was made, the rest of the ride was enjoyed taking in the sites and the history.
Maps, photos and a youtube vid of some of the places are below. Edit – the video has been replaced by a higher res version.
