Australia / New Zealand, Trip Reports » Australian Great Dividing Trail

Hey Tigers

This was my first bikepacking trip though I have done some minimal onroad bikepacking before I even knew to call it bikepacking and never involved dirt.

So on the 28th December in the hottest part of the year me and a mate rode the Great Dividing Trail from Ballarat to Bendigo a total of 200km in 2 days staying at Mt Franklin (the location not the bottled water). The Great Dividing Trail follows the old goldfields and logging area of the 1800 and early 1900s so you see some pretty cool histoic sites along the way.

I was lucky in that my partner in crime had previous completed the Ballarat-Castlemaine section and had it tracked in his GPS. The trail is never far from civilisation with the trail evenly split up into 3 section

Ballarat-(Daylesford)-Castlemaine-Bendigo of approximatley 60-70kms each. Perfect for a first time bikepacking. The trail is very well marked though you will still need maps which can be bought for $9 each.  Most intersections are marked and there are often reminder markers between

intersections.  If you get to the next intersection and there is no marker you have probably gone the wrong way.

We left Melb on the first train to Ballarat and headed towards Daylesford which is separated into two sections split up with some aspahlt at the halfway point. The first section consists of some sections of ST near Salty Creek and St George Lake and large sections of Rough Fire Trail through Creswick State Forest. Decided to skip Cresswick which was a mistake cos I ran out of water in the Wombat State Forest.  The trail markers are a little dodgy here with one sign at the Koala park hidden by a fallen branch and after crossing Jackass Rd the trail appears to continue as single track but actually veers off here

The Wombat section was consisted of bout half-half ST (pretty rough and not well used with lots of downed logs) and FT, a bit of disused rail trail. I decided to grab some water at Sailors Spring which was dry and took my chances with some untreated stream water with some chlorine. The last section into Dylesford is heavily overgrown through a green valley so take it careful, lots of hidden booby traps

Had lunch at Daylesford Lake with a swim which was very welcome. We bought some dinner to cook at Mt Franklin (which has ‘washing water” which turned out to be rainwater {stupid!}) and a six back of cider to drink after a hard day. The problem is that MTBers are not allowed/unsuitable to use the trail between Daylesford and Hepburn Springs so some back road touring is need and where we got lost for the first time! (thanks Juddy) Be careful even with a GPS we took a wrong turn and didnt check it again till we had climbed a large hill ridden down and up one massive rollercoster type valley and found a fence line blocking our way to the highway. Not what you want with dinner, full water containers and ciders on your back, so we decided to take the safe route and head back the way we came to get the right route rather than risk it. The bypass is in Keiran Ryans “Off-Road Cycling Adventures book”

Bike from the access rd of Mt Franklin

Mt Franklin was a very nice place to stay (apart from the cityslickers who need a generator, satelite dish and RV to camp. It is a old volcanic crater which a bunch of decidious trees, some toilet and wood BBQ that we scavenged wood for by pushing over a 15m tall dead gum. Had a dinner of cous cous, bean and tuna and went to bed in my 10C sleeping bag (sans tent) and froze all night. Seems that it is a little cool for me and too small. Realised that night after looking at my HRM that I burned around 7000 Cal and didn’t go near eating even half of that, so the next day made a concious effort to eat alot more! We were now more than halfway through our trip.

Slept in till 9am the next day due to the craters tall walls, tried and then couldn’t be bothered climbing to the top of Franklin then headed off. Had lunch at Vaughan Springs and had a killer awesome descent into Castlemaine following an old gold water race. Very fast and heaps of fun. Grabbed some Subway and realised we would need to push it to make the last train at Bendigo. This was when we realised that juddys tube was popping out a scratched sidewall (note take a spare tyre cos my front tyre was also grazed but not critical) so we replaced it and headed off on the hardest part of the trip in 35C weather and some killer hills. The section trhough Castlemaine Digging was a little annoying with some killer steep ascents and descents in full sun.

We had decided to avoid Mt Alexander on the advice from http://worldwiderichmond.typepad.com/wombat_forest_trails/2009/05/lenaganook-trail-western-bypass.html We decided to head to the Freeway and then to Harcourt before hooking onto the bypass as recommended except the freeway had a cyclone fence which necessiated lifting our bike up onto a retaining wall and crossing the freeway. We hooked up to the flat and well maintained Coliban Water Channel service road as we slipstreamed the rest of the way (including riding through one of the channel tunnel which is a engineering feat for back in the day though you need lights) to make the last train we cut our trip short and popped into Kangeroo Flat to get the train, a sock shower( like a sponge bath but with a sock) some KFC and then a free (no train conductor) trip back to Melb on the train.

Juddy Manboobies sweat

Learnings

• Have a better understanding of how much water I use and how often and when to fill up (nb this doesnt work for my camel mate Juddy)
• Have a basic GPS onhand just in case and recheck your route 5 min down the trail just to make sure.
• Setup the suspension based on the extra weight and a fatigued rider
• get as much weight off my back (it was KILLING me 3 days later) will prob get a seat post rack and use a medium sized hydration backpack
• Rehydrate even after the ride (I spuued the next day)
• I will do a seperate review of my gear which I will upload soon
• While the ride is doable in two days, three would make it much more fun and would mean you could hammer the hills and MTB sections a bit more rather than just slogging it
• dont sleep in and try and avoid the heat of the day
• take more regular eat breaks