Why this ride
From Chirnside Park it runs 959 km to Diamond Creek; allow about 16 h 01 of riding. The stops in between: Kilmore, near Woodend, near Clifton Springs and Williamstown. The climbs: near Langwarrin and in Narre Warren.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Yarra Valley and Black Spur + Grampians Mountain Sweep
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 959 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 16 h 01
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Melbourne / Victoria return → Yarra Valley and Black Spur food stop
59 km on Melbourne / Victoria return → Yarra Valley and Black Spur food stop.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 59 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Fuel stop in Chirnside Park
Planning note
Yarra Valley and Black Spur is where the day begins. Next is Melbourne / Victoria return.
2. Near Kilmore, on the way back
Kilmore has a fair claim to be the oldest inland town in Victoria, and the stone buildings along its main street back it up. It sits in a gap in the Great Dividing Range, a natural passage that the early overlanders used on the road between Melbourne and the Murray, and the Hume Highway still slips through here today. This stop lies a little south of the town, in sheep and cattle country between Kilmore, Broadford and Lancefield, where the land rolls in broad folds of yellow-brown grass and dark clumps of gum trees.
Read the complete Melbourne / Victoria write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Melbourne / Victoria return comes up 53 km in. Next is Food stop near Woodend.
3. Food stop near Woodend
Woodend is the gateway to the Macedon Ranges, a country town of old stone and weatherboard buildings, cool-climate gardens and excellent cafés, about an hour north-west of Melbourne. Its clock tower, a memorial to King Edward VII, stands at the main intersection, and the town has the slightly genteel air of a place where city people have long come to escape the summer heat.
Read the complete Food stop near Woodend write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
A break here. Next is Photo stop near Clifton Springs.
4. Photo stop near Clifton Springs
Clifton Springs looks north across Corio Bay, and on a clear afternoon the view is the reason to stop: the water in front, the industrial skyline of Geelong to the west, the granite bumps of the You Yangs rising out of the plain beyond, and on the best days the Melbourne towers far to the north-east. The town is part of the Bellarine Peninsula, a fist of farmland, vineyards and small seaside towns that closes off the western side of Port Phillip.
Read the complete Photo stop near Clifton Springs write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Photo stop near Clifton Springs, early in the day. Next is Yarra Valley and Black Spur checkpoint 8.
5. Near Williamstown
Williamstown was Melbourne's first port. Before the Yarra was dredged to allow ships to reach the city, vessels anchored off Point Gellibrand, at the mouth of the river, and the town that grew up there still has the feel of an old maritime settlement, with bluestone warehouses, pubs, churches and a timeball tower that once signalled the time to ships in the bay. Rides finish here on Hobsons Bay, off this historic waterfront, and it is a fine place to do so.
Read the complete Near Williamstown write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Yarra Valley and Black Spur checkpoint 8. That is the ride. Next is High point near Langwarrin.
6. High point near Langwarrin
Langwarrin sits on the edge of Melbourne's south-eastern sprawl, where the suburbs of Frankston give way to bushland, horse paddocks and the first hints of the Mornington Peninsula. It is not a mountain in any sense; the high ground here is gentle, but it is enough to give you glimpses across towards Port Phillip and Western Port on a clear day.
Read the complete High point near Langwarrin write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
High point near Langwarrin is the summit of this stretch. Next is Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West.
7. Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West
Cranbourne West is new Melbourne: wide estates, roundabouts, fresh bitumen and shopping centres that did not exist a generation ago. You would not ride out here for the suburb itself. But just to the east, on the sandy rise of Cranbourne, is something genuinely special, the Cranbourne Gardens of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
317 km in you reach Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West. Next is Back to Yarra Valley.
8. Back to Yarra Valley
Chirnside Park and Lilydale are where Melbourne's eastern suburbs finally loosen their grip, and the hills of the Yarra Ranges start to rise on the horizon. It is a pleasant place to end a day in the Yarra Valley, with the road coming down out of the green hills, past paddocks and vineyards, to a belt of shopping strips and roundabouts. Lilydale is a proper town of sixteen thousand, with a lake, a railway line to the city and plenty of everything a tired rider needs.
Read the complete Yarra Valley write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Back to Yarra Valley. That is the ride. Next is Grampians Mountain Sweep.
9. Fuel stop near Diamond Creek
Diamond Creek is a leafy outer suburb in Nillumbik, north-east of Melbourne, where the city begins to dissolve into hills, bush and small farms. The creek itself runs through the town, and the area has a long association with goldmining, artists and people seeking a bit of space. Neighbouring Eltham is known for its mud-brick houses and the Montsalvat artists' colony.
10. Near Romsey, on the way back
The Macedon Ranges rise abruptly from the plains north-west of Melbourne, a cluster of old volcanic hills covered in forests, gardens and farmland, and this stop is on their north-eastern side, near the small town of Romsey. Just to the west stands Hanging Rock, a jagged volcanic formation made famous by Joan Lindsay's novel Picnic at Hanging Rock and Peter Weir's 1975 film, about a group of schoolgirls who vanish during a picnic on Valentine's Day in 1900. The story is fiction, but the rock has an eerie atmosphere, and the walk to the top is worth it.
Read the complete Near Romsey, on the way back write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Melbourne / Victoria return comes up 476 km in. Next is Food stop near Bacchus Marsh.
11. Food stop near Bacchus Marsh
Coming into Bacchus Marsh from the east, you ride through an arch of tall elms: the Avenue of Honour, planted after the First World War with a tree for each local man who enlisted. It is a moving entrance to a town that sits in a deep, fertile bowl where the Werribee and Lerderderg rivers meet, ringed by dry hills. The flats along the rivers have been orchards and market gardens since the nineteenth century, and roadside stalls still sell apples, pears and vegetables straight from the farms.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Bacchus Marsh write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
A break here. Next is Grampians Mountain Sweep photo pull-off.
12. Saint Leonards
Matthew Flinders, mapping Port Phillip in 1802, came ashore near Indented Head, a few kilometres up the coast from here, and climbed the hills to look over the bay. St Leonards is a quiet seaside town at the eastern tip of the Bellarine Peninsula, with a long pier, a sheltered beach and views across the water to the Mornington Peninsula and the distant towers of Melbourne.
Read the complete Near Saint Leonards write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Grampians Mountain Sweep photo pull-off, late in the day. Next is Grampians Mountain Sweep checkpoint 8.
13. Near Hampton
Port Phillip Bay is so large that from its northern shore you cannot see the other side, and the stop is right on that shore, along the beaches between Elwood and Brighton, a few kilometres south of Melbourne's centre. As a base for setting out and coming home it works well: the city is close, but the bay gives a sense of space, and on a summer evening, with the light going gold over the water and people swimming and walking their dogs along the sand, it is hard to feel stressed.
Read the complete Near Hampton write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Grampians Mountain Sweep checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is High point in Narre Warren.
14. High point in Narre Warren
Narre Warren is a big suburban hub in Melbourne's south-east, but look north and the land begins to lift. Narre Warren North and the Harkaway hills rise behind the town, a rolling patchwork of paddocks, horse properties and pockets of bush that climbs towards Lysterfield and the southern foot of the Dandenong Ranges.
Read the complete High point in Narre Warren write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The high point of this section. Next is Scenic stretch near Bayswater North.
15. Scenic stretch near Bayswater North
Bayswater North sits at the very foot of the Dandenong Ranges, on the eastern rim of Melbourne's suburbs. The streets are quiet and leafy, and from many of them you can see the dark blue wall of the ranges rising just beyond, with Mount Dandenong and its towers on top. Dandenong Creek meanders through parkland on the western side, and the EastLink tollway carves a wide corridor nearby.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Bayswater North write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
740 km in you reach Scenic stretch near Bayswater North. Next is Back to Grampians.
16. Back to Grampians
Hurstbridge sits on the northeastern edge of Melbourne, at the end of a suburban railway line, where the outskirts blur into bushland and low hills. With Wattle Glen beside it, the area belongs to what planners call the Green Wedge, a strip of farms, orchards and eucalypt forest that keeps the city from sprawling all the way to the Kinglake Ranges. The dot sits here because this is a way home from the Grampians, which lie more than two hundred kilometres to the west, and this is the quiet end of the loop.
Read the complete Grampians write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back to Grampians closes the day.
Leg by leg
Fuel stop in Chirnside Park to Near Kilmore, on the way back
Fuel stop in Chirnside Park → Near Kilmore, on the way back is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Woodend to Photo stop near Clifton Springs
Food stop near Woodend → Photo stop near Clifton Springs is 99 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Photo stop near Clifton Springs to Near Williamstown
Photo stop near Clifton Springs → Near Williamstown is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Langwarrin to Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West
High point near Langwarrin → Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West to Back to Yarra Valley
Scenic stretch near Cranbourne West → Back to Yarra Valley is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Yarra Valley to Fuel stop near Diamond Creek
Back to Yarra Valley → Fuel stop near Diamond Creek is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop near Diamond Creek to Near Romsey, on the way back
Fuel stop near Diamond Creek → Near Romsey, on the way back is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Bacchus Marsh to Saint Leonards
Food stop near Bacchus Marsh → Saint Leonards is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
High point in Narre Warren to Scenic stretch near Bayswater North
High point in Narre Warren → Scenic stretch near Bayswater North is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Bayswater North to Back to Grampians
Scenic stretch near Bayswater North → Back to Grampians is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
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