Otways Rainforest Roads

A 349 km loop

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Why this ride

A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. 349 km round from Point Cook - plan on about 7 h 15 of riding. The stops in between: Sunshine West, Scenic stretch near Mickleham and near Wallan. near Wyndham Vale is the high point.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop near Point Cook fuel

   Point Cook sits on the western shore of Port Phillip Bay, a fast-growing suburb on flat basalt plains between Werribee and Altona. The land here is open and windswept, with long views across the water to the city skyline. It is not a destination for twisty roads, but it has some surprising history.

   RAAF Base Williams at Point Cook is regarded as the birthplace of the Royal Australian Air Force, and military flying began here in 1914. The RAAF Museum displays aircraft from the earliest days to the jet age and is worth a visit for anyone with an interest in aviation. Nearby, Point Cook Coastal Park and the Cheetham Wetlands protect saltmarsh, lagoons and a remarkable range of birdlife, including migratory shorebirds.

   As a start and fuel stop, Point Cook is practical. There are plenty of service stations, cafés and shopping centres, and the Princes Freeway provides quick access west towards Geelong and the Great Ocean Road. Morning traffic can be heavy, especially heading towards the city, but the outbound direction is usually clear.

   Wind is the main riding consideration here. The plains are exposed, and strong gusts off the bay can push a bike around, especially on the freeway. Once you head west towards the Otways, the landscape becomes more varied, with forests, hills and the coast offering some of Victoria's finest riding. Point Cook is the calm beginning of a big day.

2. High point near Wyndham Vale pass

   Wyndham Vale is one of the new suburbs on Melbourne's western fringe, where housing estates spread across the basalt plains towards Geelong. The landscape is flat, open and often windswept, with stone walls built by early settlers from the volcanic rock and low volcanic hills such as Mount Cottrell rising from the grassland. It is not the most scenic place on its own, but it is where the city releases you towards the coast and the Otways.

   The plains have a quiet, stark beauty. Native grasslands once covered them, and remnants survive in reserves, with wildflowers in spring. Kangaroos can sometimes be seen at dawn on the edges of the estates. To the south lies Werribee, with its grand Werribee Park mansion, built in the 1870s by wealthy pastoralists, and the Open Range Zoo. To the west, the granite outcrops of the You Yangs rise from the plain, with tracks and lookouts popular with walkers and mountain bikers.

   The riding here is mostly about getting somewhere. The Princes Freeway runs fast and straight towards Geelong, while minor roads cross the plains in long straights with few bends. Wind is the constant companion, gusting across the open land, and summer can bring scorching heat and fire risk. Traffic around the new estates can be heavy at peak hours.

   Fuel, supermarkets and fast food are plentiful in Wyndham Vale and Werribee. For something better, head to Werribee or carry on towards Geelong. Beyond, the ride continues to the Great Ocean Road and the rainforests of the Otways, where the riding becomes far more rewarding. Take a break, drink plenty of water on hot days, and prepare for the curves ahead.

3. Near Sunshine West finish

   The suburb of Sunshine took its name from a harvester. In the early twentieth century, H. V. McKay built a huge factory here to manufacture the Sunshine Harvester, a machine that revolutionised wheat farming in Australia, and the suburb grew up around the works. In 1907, a court case involving McKay's company, known as the Harvester Judgment, established the principle of a basic wage, enough to support a worker and his family in reasonable comfort, a landmark in Australian labour history.

   It is not a beautiful place, but it is a practical finish point for rides that have spent the day on the Great Ocean Road and in the Otways.

   The Great Ocean Road, built by returned soldiers after the First World War and dedicated as a memorial to their fallen comrades, follows the coast west of Melbourne for more than two hundred kilometres, with cliffs, beaches, surf towns and rainforest. The Twelve Apostles, limestone stacks standing in the sea off Port Campbell, are its most famous sight, though there are fewer than twelve of them, and they keep collapsing. Inland, the Otway Ranges are covered in tall forests of eucalyptus, tree ferns and myrtle beech, with waterfalls and winding roads.

   Coming back into Melbourne after a long day on the coast, the Princes Freeway is fast and busy, and traffic can be heavy on Sunday evenings. Sunshine West has fuel, supermarkets and takeaways on every arterial road, with food from Vietnam, Africa, the Middle East and southern Europe. Melbourne's weather can change quickly, so be prepared for anything from a heatwave to a cold southerly change.

4. Scenic stretch near Mickleham scenic

   North of Melbourne, the Hume Freeway runs up a long corridor of basalt plain, and Mickleham sits just off it, where old farming land is rapidly turning into new housing estates. Look past the roofs, though, and the older landscape is still there: stony paddocks, dry-stone walls built by early settlers, scattered red gums and the low volcanic cones that punctuate the plains.

   Those stone walls are a quiet treasure. Many were laid in the nineteenth century from the basalt boulders cleared off the fields, and they still run for long distances across the paddocks north of the city. Mount Ridley, a gentle rise nearby, and the grasslands around it give a sense of what this volcanic country looked like before the suburbs arrived. Woodlands Historic Park, a short ride south near the airport, protects old red gums and grassy woodland where eastern grey kangaroos graze.

   The riding through here is about connection. Mickleham Road and the routes north towards Kilmore and Wallan are mostly straight, with long sightlines and gentle undulations, and they lead towards hillier country around the Macedon Ranges and the Great Dividing Range. Traffic is growing fast, and trucks are common, so be patient at intersections. Wind across the plain can be strong and gusty.

   There is little in Mickleham itself beyond the new estates, but fuel and food are easy to find in Craigieburn and along the Hume. Treat this stretch as a breather between the city and the hills, and enjoy the sense of space while it lasts.

5. Photo stop near Wallan photo

   When the explorers Hume and Hovell pushed south in 1824, they climbed a forested peak north-east of here hoping to glimpse Port Phillip Bay, saw nothing but trees, and named it Mount Disappointment. The name stuck, and the ranges that rise east of Wallan still carry it. Wallan itself is a growing town on the Hume Freeway, the main road from Melbourne to Sydney, and the meeting point of new housing estates and old farmland.

   For riders, Wallan is a practical stop on the way to better things. To the north, the Hume heads towards Kilmore, which proudly calls itself Victoria's oldest inland town, and beyond to the Strathbogie Ranges. To the east, roads climb into the Kinglake and Mount Disappointment forests, with tight corners through tall mountain ash and messmate. These forests were devastated by the Black Saturday bushfires of 2009, and the regrowth, with blackened trunks rising from green undergrowth, is still visible in places.

   The roads into the ranges are narrow, steep and sometimes gravelly, with blind corners and wildlife. Kangaroos and wombats are a real hazard at dawn and dusk, and logging trucks may appear on forest roads. Weather can change quickly, with cool mists in the hills while the plains bake. In summer, check fire danger ratings before heading into the forests.

   Wallan has fuel stations, fast food outlets and supermarkets, as well as a few cafés. The highway service centres nearby are open long hours. Fill up here before heading into the ranges or onwards, as the forest roads offer few services. Whether you are heading towards the Otways via the western suburbs or simply taking a loop through the hills, Wallan is where the city ends and the country begins.

6. Near Gembrook, on the way back swim

   Gembrook sits on the eastern edge of the Dandenong Ranges, at the far end of the line of Puffing Billy, the narrow-gauge steam railway that winds through the forests from Belgrave, carrying tourists on wooden carriages with their legs dangling out of the windows. Just south of the town, near Pakenham Upper, the country opens into a landscape of rolling hills, orchards, forests and small farms, between the ranges and the plains of the south-east.

   The Dandenongs are a range of forested hills just east of Melbourne, with tall mountain ash, tree ferns and lyrebirds, whose extraordinary mimicry can include chainsaws and camera shutters. The forests are beautiful but vulnerable to fire: in 1983, the Ash Wednesday bushfires swept through this area, devastating the town of Cockatoo, a few kilometres north of Gembrook, and other communities. The landscape has recovered, but the memory remains.

   Swimming options here are limited and worth knowing about in advance. The reservoirs in the area are water supply catchments, closed to swimming. The best-known swimming spot within reach is Lysterfield Lake, in a park on the western side of the ranges, with a sandy beach and picnic areas, popular in summer. Some local towns also have public pools.

   The roads around Gembrook and through the Dandenongs are excellent for riding, winding through forests and over hills, with good surfaces and fine views. They can be narrow, with tight bends, and they are busy on weekends with tourists and cyclists. Watch out for wildlife, especially wallabies and wombats, at dawn and dusk. On the way back from the Otways, this is a long detour east of the city, but the forest roads make it worthwhile. Gembrook and Pakenham have fuel, cafés and bakeries, and if you time it right you can watch Puffing Billy wheeze into Gembrook station in a cloud of coal smoke while you eat.

7. Food stop near Clyde North food

   Clyde North is about as new as a Melbourne suburb gets. Not long ago this was flat farmland south-east of Berwick; now it is a sea of fresh rooftops, wide boulevards and shopping centres built almost overnight. As a place to end a ride, it has one big advantage: it is easy. Plenty of food options, ample parking, and a short run to the Monash Freeway and the South Gippsland Highway.

   The landscape around it still tells its old story if you look. To the south lie the flats that run down towards Western Port, once the Koo Wee Rup Swamp, a vast wetland drained in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to create farmland. Asparagus, potatoes and dairy took over, and Koo Wee Rup is still known for its asparagus. To the north rise the green hills of Harkaway and the Dandenongs.

   The riding nearby is mostly flat and practical, but the back roads south towards Tooradin and the coast have a quiet, open charm, with long straights across the drained plains and big skies overhead. Watch out for strong crosswinds, trucks and farm vehicles. In wet weather, roads can be slippery with mud near farm entrances.

   For food, you have a wide choice in the shopping centres, from cafés to family restaurants and takeaway. Fuel is readily available too. After a long day on the Great Ocean Road or the Otways, Clyde North offers a calm, unremarkable finish where you can sit down, refuel and reflect on the miles behind you.

8. Back to Otways Rainforest finish

   Werribee South and Point Cook lie on the western shore of Port Phillip Bay, at the point where Melbourne's urban sprawl runs out onto the flat, windy plain toward Geelong. It is an unglamorous end to a ride that began in the damp green of the Otway Ranges, but it has its own odd charm. The land here is flat as paper, divided into market gardens that produce much of the lettuce and cauliflower Melburnians eat, and the sky is huge.

   Behind you, the Otways are wild country. The forest of mountain ash and myrtle beech grows in some of the wettest parts of Victoria, with tree ferns, moss and lichen along the road, and the light falls in green shafts through the canopy. Cape Otway has a lighthouse dating from 1848, among the oldest on the Australian mainland, and the koalas that sit in the manna gums by the road are rarely in a hurry. The Twelve Apostles, a row of limestone stacks off the coast further west, are the great sight on the Great Ocean Road, though only a handful of the stacks now stand.

   Closer to the finish, there is an interesting history lesson. Point Cook is the birthplace of Australian military aviation, as the country's first flying school opened there in 1914, and the RAAF was later formed here. A small museum and old hangars remain beside the shore. At Werribee, there is a handsome pastoral mansion in a park and a large wetland, the Western Treatment Plant, that is paradoxically among the best bird-watching sites in Victoria, with thousands of ducks and waders.

   Riding on the plain is straightforward. The roads are straight, the speed limits tight, and the wind can be strong. Cameras are common, and truck traffic is heavy near the Princes Freeway. Evenings are best, when the light is gentle and the market gardens glow.

   Fuel is easy here, with plenty of stations and cafes, and the city is only a short run from here along the freeway.

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