High Coutry raid, day six Myrtleford to Wangaratta

 

 

 

 

The last day of our high country raid was a ride from Myrtleford to Wangaratta. Our train at Wang did not leave till one forty four so we were able to dawdle, and ate at a bakery before a comparatively late start at 7:30. The rail trail to Wangaratta is along the Ovens valley but climbs for a few meters at Gapstead. The way from Gapstead to Wangaratta is almost all downhill or flat so the whole ride was comparatively easy. This was also Chris's home turf he leaves about 10 kilometers the other side of Wang.

We were in Wang in plenty of time and I was able to settle up finances with Phil. The cost of the whole trip was modest as was the environmental impact of our travel. But we stayed in local hotels drank and in local pubs and bakery and experienced a fairly gentle way of travel.

We had lunch at the Wangaratta performing Arts Centre before saying goodbye to Phil and heading for the station. The train was fairly full with many bikes on board. I carried mine only partly disassembled onto the train before splitting it and this seemed to work well. It was I relaxing trip back to Melbourne. Many thanks to Phil for the organizing and to Steve Michael and Chris for the company on the trip. I really like the mix of traveling between towns and staying in one place to get to know towns better. Plan to be back in the high country with a bicycle or contraption soon.

There were lots of aging, decaying concrete and steel railway signal posts on the line and I photographed a few of them!

 

High Country Raid, Day 5 Myrtleford

 

 

Day five of our high country Raid was spent exploring the bike paths above Myrtleford. There is a rail trail to Bright which has been open for years but now a bike path runs all the way to Harrietville. I'd been on the bike path to Bright before but the section to Harrietville was new to me. These are both excellent bike paths but the section to Harrietville was stunning. The latter part runs through forest and beside a river -  it’s very peaceful riding. Slightly uphill all the way and we stopped at an excellent road side caravan at Harrietville for lunch.

 

Magpies had been swooping our group for the last few days. Michael was sick of it and tried and experiment with cable ties and sunglasses on the back of his helmet. He said he was still swooped but not quite so badly! On my recumbent I didn't get swooped at all, but maybe this was down to the flashing lights I had on the back of my helmet. Throughout the whole trip every one behaved impeccably and the only swearing I noticed was Chris warning us of a famous swooping magpie called the Gapstead bastard!

 

After Harrietville we turned around and descended back into Myrtleford. The nice trail into Bright was now super easy to ride, and made me feel I had an electric motor on my trike. There was plenty of time for the op shops in Myrtleford when we arrived back and I bought my girlfriend a few souvenirs from the ride, including a glass from the 1968 Bong Bong cup horse race! Not something you'll find every day! (And I am no stranger to Myrtleford and op shops, see here!)

 

We had another pub meal where I spoke to Phil about his bikes. He does many, many kilometers around town and on Audax rides, to the extent that he wears out clusters and chains regularly. He wears out things that don't normally wear on bikes such as brake hoods and derailleur hangers. Chris and he had toured extensively on bikes including doing the Munda Biddi trail which runs for over 1000km from Mundaring to Albany in South-West Western Australia.