Ouyen to Swan Hill
An escape from (or a way to) Ouyen by bike
It was Chris’s last stop in Ouyen before heading off to Europe. It was appropriate to find a way to leave it by bike. It’s not necessarily a tour we would recommend, but it is a viable way to get from (or to) Ouyen as a link to other tours of the Mallee (e.g. this or this).
It took us two days; the second longer than our comfortable take-it-easy benchmark at 80 km. At other times of the year, it might be possible to break it into 2 and a half days with a night at the Nyah West pub or the Nyah Caravan Park (~50 km from Manangatang), but both were fully booked out by seasonal fruit-pickers. Our remaining choices from Manangatang to Swan Hill were to ride 50 km to Tooleybuc (30 unsealed) and then 50 to Swan Hill, or just do 80 km direct on sealed roads. We chose the latter.
An advantage of ending the second day in Swan Hill was the ability to catch the 6:54 AM train to Bendigo/Melbourne the following morning for an early-afternoon arrival in Melbourne. Going via Nyah West would have meant getting to Swan Hill in time to catch the afternoon train for a late arrival in Melbourne.
Day 1. Ouyen to Manangatang
Monday 16th September 2024 (64 km of quiet back roads, 40 unsealed, ending with 2 km on the main road into Manangatang)
The ride to Manangatang was surprisingly pleasant, starting with a short ride down the cemetry road to the end of the bitumen. cycle.travel insisted on plotting a route that would have taken us a further km south to the next formal rail-crossing and an unpleasant ride back along the Calder. Instead of doing that, we ported our bags and bikes across the small corridor of bush and the train tracks, allowing us to cross the Calder at the start of Marshalls Road. After a km of tarmac, Marshalls Road turned to gravel. Maree was able to take a few nostalgic photos of the old farm block which sits between Marshalls Rd and Cocamba Rd.
The gravel was good, and got even better when we turned on to Cocamba Road. Along the 40 km of gravel, there was only a short stretch of Marshalls Road with enough sand to set our bikes wobbling, and only a few minor climbs up dunes, and down to clay-road sections through a few salt flats (which might prove challenging in the wetter winter months).
The flies were more problematic in mid-September than they were on my mid-winter ride through this country, but a hint of a breeze seemed to be enough to keep them away. We lunched under the shelter of the Mittyack telephone exchange: the only significant construction we passed all day. A big advantage of the unsealed road was the lack of car traffic. Not a single car passed us going our direction all day, and we only encountered 3 motorcyclists and 1 car coming toward us.
Nevertheless, reaching the bitumen was welcome and we picked up the pace with a light tail-wind along Daytrap Road past Lake Lulla to the main Manangatang Road for the last 2 km into town. Of course, in those 2 km we had to step off the road to let a B-double roar past. The Manangatang Family Hotel was welcoming.
Day 2. Manangatang to Swan Hill
Tuesday 17th September 2024 (80 km, all sealed)
We saw a lot more cars and trucks the next day on the road to Swan Hill. The early morning C road south towards Sea Lake was quiet enough, with a pretty generous verge mostly. It was certainly an easier ride than the gravel road on the other side of the railway line would have been. Nevertheless, we gratefully took cycle.travel’s advice and took that gravel road for the last 4 km into Chinkapook to cut off a km or so on the main road. (It was fine).
The narrow bitumen road from Chinkapook to Chingollah (neither town with much to offer a passing cyclist) carried a surprising amount of car and truck traffic, but infrequent enough that it wasn’t too onerous to jump off the bitumen to let them pass.
The road east from Chingollah was wider: a long, straight uneventful ride requiring another lunch stop in the middle of nowhere on a log under a tree. The cool day and the reasonable tail wind made it a pretty pleasant experience.
The turn south-east to Woorinen South saw the traffic pick up a bit. Woorinen South was a welcome rest stop under a shady tree on some well-manicured grass. There was also a pub and a general store there, but it was a sign of the benignness of the day, that we didn’t feel the need to patronize either.
Reminiscent of entering Bendigo, the last 12 km from Woorinen South to Swan Hill were the hairiest of the day. Perhaps it was the time of day coinciding with tradie knock-off time, but we were passed by many large utes at speed, many leaving less room than ideal (or legal for that matter). One plumber’s van being tailgated by a large ute, both leaving us less than a metre without a hint of slowing down, was the terrifying highlight of the approach to Swan Hill. It was a relief to hit the speed limits at the edge of town, and the final meander through the suburbs was a calmer experience.
We arrived at the Travellers Rest Motel in time to visit the train station and check that we needed paper tickets for the trip to Melbourne (we did) and to buy a drink and nibbles to relax in the bath before heading out for an Indian feed before a good nights sleep before catching the 6:54 train to Melbourne the next morning.