Day 24 – Beechworth to Tallangatta
There was a nice dirt road out of Beechworth (once I found it), downhill through nice forest. It joined up with the trail which took me most of the way to Yackandandah.
There, I met a really nice couple who started asking questions. Turns out they were bike tourers, so we talked for a while and they gave me some perfect directions for the rest of the ride – thanks Phil and ? (Sorry).
There was a trail out of Yackandandah and it was fun to ride. Eventually, it finished and I took mainly quiet roads to Huon where I linked up with the railtrail to Tallangatta. I camped at the showgrounds and had a meal in at the local pub, where I tried to plan the next few days.
Day 25 – Tallangatta to Colac Colac
I didn’t think too much about today’s ride and probably should have. I took the rail trail up to Shelley. This includes out 15kms of flat easy riding followed by 30kms of uphill at a constant 2.7%. It sounds easy and it is for the first 20kms, but it gets a little tedious after that.
From the top at Shelley, which used to be the highest railway station in Australia, the trail is incomplete. I hoping to make my way to Cudgewa and was feeling adventurous so I followed the old trail. It got a little less defined as I descended. After the second impassable trestle bridge, I couldn’t find an alternative, and I thought that it could only get worse. I turned around and rode back to the top – frustrated, but happy to know that I wasn’t going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere. I made it to Colac Colac campground after 6pm.
The good news is that I got to do the downhill again 🙂