VIC: Cycling to Porepunkah and Wandiligong

By Cubie - January 08, 2022


Bright is a great cycling destination with multiple trails available. The Murray to Mountains Rail Trail is a popular favourite for a scenic and flat ride. The whole trail 95km goes all the way to Beechworth or Wangaratta.

I don't cycle regularly and cannot be sure of my cycling stamina so I decided to just cycle to Porepunkah from Bright (12km return) and then to Wandiligong (11km return). I rented a bicycle from All Terrain Cycle for a day. There is another bicyle shop but this was nearer to where I stayed. The offer for both looks similar-ish. 

My ride for a day


Porepunkah


For some reason, Google doesn't lead me to the Murray and Mountains Rail Trail but coincidentally I saw a few cyclists heading towards a direction and I followed suite. Once you get to the trail, the directions are fairly clear. 

My initial plan was to do the Porepunkah River Walk in Porepunkah then head towards the other direction to Wandiligong. As I was cycling, I realised I did part of the walk on the bike already as the walk starts at Riverside Park and along the Murray to Mountains (MTM) rail trail. In addition, the bike was to follow where I went. I also just had breakfast, so I wasn't hungry yet. So after cycling around a little, I decided to head to Wandiligong. 


Wandiligong

Another swingbridge

I returned to Bright and then continued on to Wandiligong but Google kept on sending me to the main road, which is not incorrect but oh so steep and I can't find the starting point of the cycling route in the beginning. Long story short I did after peddling up a very steep turn and wanted to get off the bike and pushed. Haha. 

Upon getting to Wandiligong, I saw a sign post indicating route to Chinese Swing Bridge, which was part of The Diggings Walk that I planned to do so I turned in. 

Chinese Bridge in the middle of nowhere

I also ended up doing the 'walk' mostly by cycling. I misunderstood the arrow and took a wrong turn but it still brought me to a main road via Royal Bridge. 


So I returned back to The Diggings Walk via Lardis Lane and saw the Chinese Pavillion.


I decided it was time for lunch and cycled to The Wandi Pub but as I wasn't sure what time I would be having lunch, I didn't make a reservation. An error in current times I guess, because they were full. I cycled around a little more and decided to return to Bright. I got lucky and bumped into a family of 3 who were also on the way back to Bright. They very kindly showed me the non uphill way to get back to Bright. 




Side note: All I did was eat non stop, all day every day -__-"

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