Easy does it: This week-long bike trip is a good time, not a hard time

Gold literally grows on trees in Victoria’s north-east. Gold and claret and vermilion and burnt amber. From my bike saddle, the autumn leaves are as attention grabbing as giant rustling pom-poms – quite the distraction when you’re whizzing along at speed. But this route was created for gold of another kind.

There’s an avenue of colour along the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail.Credit: Karen Webb

In the mid-1850s it was the nuggety, expensive type that had people flocking. For a time, the Victorian gold rush accounted for more than a third of the world’s gold production, driving the settlement of towns like Beechworth, Yackandandah, Myrtleford and Bright, as well as the train lines required to service them. Now decommissioned, those old train routes have been repurposed as bike paths, offering relatively flat riding with gloriously bucolic views.

There was a time when I was a moderately badass mountain biker, but that time was almost three decades ago and I haven’t even owned a bike for eight years. Despite this blatant lack of bike fitness, I’ve signed up for a week-long guided ride on the Murray to Mountains Rail Trail with Tour de Vines – mercifully, on an e-bike. By the time I finish there’ll be only one body part in discomfort and it won’t be my legs.

Our group of eight, plus founder and guide Damian Cerini, starts in Beechworth with a goal to ride almost 170 kilometres to Harrietville at the foothills of the Victorian Alps.

“We just do the first section in reverse direction to avoid a big hill,” Cerini says, “and so we can have two nights in Beechworth which has better food and accommodation.” It pretty much sets the tone for the entire ride. We’re here for a good time, not a hard time.

Beechworth is a great spot to do time.Credit: Karen Webb

Yackandandah is exceedingly quaint, with a National Trust classified main street full of artsy and vintage shops. But after a 26-kilometre ride and a brief wander, our support vehicle whisks us back to bigger Beechworth, home of the famous Beechworth Bakery (I can highly recommend the yo-yos) and Beechworth Honey (with by far the honey-est chocolate-coated honeycomb I’ve had the pleasure of munching).

It’s wineries, though, that’ll be the theme of the week. About 50 scatter the King and Alpine valleys, through which the trail passes, and the next day we manage barely three kilometres before pulling off directly into Pennyweight, a boutique organic and biodynamic winery owned by fourth and fifth generation Morris family winemakers. Is 10.30am too early for a tasting? Not here. Sitting outside a corrugated iron shed fringed in crimson vines and surrounded by bushland, we work our way from riesling to gamay.

Not all Tour de Vines itineraries revolve around grapes – they roam as far afield as Cambodia and Croatia – but this Murray to Mountains route is the original and the name is fitting. In moderation, a little tipple only seems to enhance the experience. Rolling out of Pennyweight half an hour later, Karen from the Sunshine Coast nails it: “I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m feeling a really strong sense of joie de vivre!”

Wrong turns are virtually impossible so we’re encouraged to spread out, and it enhances the sense of discovery. Fifteen kilometres of gentle downhill riding has us slip through woodland (reputedly home to koalas, though they hide from us) and across open plains the colour of straw. Galahs flash watermelon pink breasts against a blue sky. The scenery is subtle but this ride is all about the journey: the changing landscapes as the trail creeps towards the mountains, the producers en route, and the history.

A wine stop along the trail.

These railways once carried gold worth billions in today’s money – no doubt highly tempting for some. “But despite Ned Kelly and other hoodlums being around, the goods train was never robbed,” says Cerini at the platform that remains of Everton station. “Given the hill we’ve just come down, the theory was that the train was so laden it was almost impossible to stop. To stand on the track as a robber, you’d be taking your own life in your hands.”

Everton marks the junction between the old east-west line (between the Yackandandah/Beechworth goldfields and Wangaratta) and the Bright line, heading south. We’re veering south, but first, a minor deviation to tiny Milawa. Why? Because there’s cheese there. And more wine and some mighty fine accommodation in the sumptuous and newly renovated Lancemore Milawa.

Sample platters at Milawa Cheese Company come with tasting notes for everything from chevre to blue (the King River Gold is my favourite), and barely half an hour on we’re kicking back with chilled bottles of prosecco and lunch in the pretty gardens of Henley’s Wine Bar & Kitchen. I start to doubt my exercise output will match the accruing input of culinary indulgences, but though I could exercise restraint, where would be the fun in that? The King Valley is Australia’s home of prosecco, after all. It would be rude not to.

Mustering the commitment of serious cyclists, we launch onto the itinerary’s biggest day – 45 kilometres from Milawa to Myrtleford that will take us over the “Col du Taylors Gap”, as Cerini jokingly refers to the trail’s modest 230-metre ascent. It’s so gradual I can barely recognise it as a hill, but then maybe that’s because of my steed.

Henley’s Wine Bar in Milawa.Credit: Karen Webb

You still need to turn the pedals on an e-bike, but it’s as though someone is giving a push from behind (or five people, if you crank it to the max). “E-bikes are keeping people riding longer,” Cerini says. Age and fitness are no barrier. “About 40 per cent of people on this route opt for one, and it’s increasing every year. On hillier trips, such as in Tasmania, it’s up to 90 per cent.”

While I’ve been exercising no restraint with recruiting pedal-assist, I discover that my fellow riders have been “toughing it out” with minimal or no assistance. If you’ve got it, use it, is my motto.

Taylors Gap marks the transition from the dry open plains of the King Valley to the greener Alpine Valleys. Tree “tunnels” and narrow railway cuttings alternate with open farmland and fields of cattle – a calf grazing on the track needs skirting around – and the flat-topped granite bulk of Mount Buffalo appears, increasing in size with every passing kilometre. A few of the group brave an icy dip in the crystal clear Ovens River.

Those wineries are persuasive though, loitering trailside and tempting us. Gapsted Estate gets us on the approach to Myrtleford, plying us with generous pours and platter of cheese, prosciutto, hummus and salt-crusted homemade bread that induce a horizontal food coma on the gently sloping lawn. All very normal, Cerini assures us.

Letting the e-bikes do the work.Credit: Karen Webb

The next day we nibble pumpkin seeds done a dozen ways at Pepo Farm en route to Ringers Reef Winery, and I realise I’ve become rather accustomed to this lifestyle, these easy rolling trails and long lunches in the sun, spilling into lazy afternoons. This pampering. I don’t want it to end.

Bright’s trees dazzle enough to draw crowds. Thick profusions of canary yellow, blood red, russet gold and fireman orange colour a town that’s become a bustling hub for skiers in winter and cyclists in summer. Only 26 kilometres remain to tiny Harrietville and the trail is far bushier here, meandering up a lush valley carved by the rushing Ovens River and peppered with ferns. Black cockatoos cry mournfully and crunch on tree nuts.

Finally, we dismount for the last time – coincidentally, at a bakery famous for its homemade pies and Swiss pastries – and it’s a testament to e-bikes that my legs don’t hurt. The pinch from my waistband from too much good food, however, is another matter.

Hmm, but can I squeeze in a beef and mushroom pie?

THE DETAILS

TOUR
The seven day/six night Tour de Active North East with Tour de Vines costs $2999 and includes all accommodation, nearly all meals, wine tastings, guide and transfers (if required) from Wangaratta train station or Albury Airport. Bike hire is $150 for a hybrid or $300 for an e-bike. Shorter and self-guided itineraries are also available. See tourdevines.com.au

FLY/DRIVE
Tours depart from Beechworth, a three-hour drive north-east of Melbourne. Qantas (qantas.com) or Rex Airlines (rex.com.au) fly to Albury from Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Wangaratta is accessible by train and coach, see vline.com.au

The writer travelled as a guest of Tour de Vines.