Red Gum Ride

Our plan to head off on a mid winter mini tour was completely opportunistic. Johnno was asked to present a talk to the Shire of Campaspe Parks and Gardens department and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a few days leave…combine business with pleasure and go for a Murray River ride…so we did!

Our planned route was to catch the V line train – cycle from Echuca to Swan Hill and catch the train back to Melbourne. Due to the weather forecast (the prospect of strong headwinds for the entire journey) we modified the ride and caught a bus to Kerang, headed north to Murrabit and rode back to Echuca via Barham, Torrumbarry and Terrick Terrick.

Lisa at Kerang Station

The Murraylink bus arrived into Kerang early afternoon and we assembled our Bike Friday tandem at Kerang station, with the local police, the likely lads they were pursuing and the passengers on the bus looking on with great interest! Once the bike was in one piece we were off and we rode north along the Myall road towards the Murray River. We got to the river late afternoon and rode along the ridiculously picturesque Murray Track to Barham and arrived just on sunset. A great first day.

Murray River

 Heading into Barham

Day Two: We knew the forecast was for rain – the only question was how much and how it might affect the condition of the track ahead – It rained at night, but in the end we only really had two heavy downpours for the day.

Siting out the early morning rain in the Barham Cafe

Our Hayman’s Cohuna – Echuca – Gunbower Adventure Map stated that “even after relatively light rain the (Gunbower Island) River Track becomes very muddy and slippery because of the clay surface”.

The first hour of the ride ~15k’s was on hard packed gravel and the track was firm and fine…this lured us into a complete false sense of security! The track soon became the anticipated compacted clay surface and yep we were slipping and sliding all over the place…

Tyre tracks (in the clay track)                            Sticky clay track legs!

The muddy Murray River Track

We (thanks mostly to Lisa) adopted a “discretion is the better part of valour” approach when confronting the really slippery sections of the track and the deeper puddles…As such we did quite a bit of walking and bashing through the bush on the sides of the track.

Where we could ride (and there were many long sections where we could) we gingerly picked a line…We fell off only twice due to the bike sliding sideways…alongside the many (many) uncontrolled slips and slides that didn’t end badly…

We laughed, we cursed, plotted and we argued a bit…laughed/cursed/plotted/argued for about 45K’s!

 Muddy Bike Friday

It was a bit of a relief to get to the Torrumbarry Weir Holiday Park. Six and a half hours riding (and walking) to cover ~60K’s. Quite a challenging day! Our onsite cabin looked out across the weir and we enjoyed a pasta meal and good nights rest.

 Hosing down the  bike                                                                Torrumbarry Weir

Day Three: We had arranged with Murray Goulburn Water staff to leave the gate unlocked on the NSW side of the weir and we were going to take the forest tracks and backroads to Moama.  We found out later that the Perricoota Forest road was closed due to waterlogging and figured that we had experienced enough mud and walking the bike for one tour and  decided to stay on the Victorian side of the river on the (mostly) bitumen roads.

We wanted to avoid the busy Murray Valley Highway so we headed (much) further south to Terrick Terrick along the long and straight Roslymead road. The Terrick Terrick grasslands are the largest intact remnant of the Northern/Mitiamo Plains Grasslands…to the horizon are natural treeless grassy plains. They are quite a sight in springtime with the wildflowers!

We were riding into a strong, southwesterly wind so it was a bit of a slog in parts. When we turned to the east the resulting tailwind that blew us into Echuca was most welcomed!

 

   Torrumbarry Weir Rd      Terrick Terrick Grasslands

We arrived in Echuca early afternoon and spent the rest of the day looking at the Port – the paddle steamers and the parks – We had a nice meal at the American Hotel and headed back to our motel room. We strategically arranged to stay in a place that had Foxtel so we could watch the St Kilda v Bulldogs match…the Saints had a win! A great way of finishing a lovely mini break.

Our (upside down) Bike Friday tandem in two parts comfortably fitting into the single bike space allocated in the Vline train.