Mount Beauty Victoria

View from the accommodation at Alpenhorn Holiday Units

After our Tasmanian intimacy, we travelled North to Mount Beauty. The wonderful Annick and Nic hosted us at their exquisite holiday units, Alpenhorn Holiday Units. The accommodation was excellent with amazing views. Myself, Tony (Darb) and Eric were made to feel very welcome.

Annick and Nic are keen mountain bikers and had planned a ravishing mountain bike loop through the local mountains for us. We eagerly woke the next morning and prepared our bikes. It was nice to take all the BikePacking gear off!

Of course Alpenhorn Holiday Units has a bike rack! We got going and headed towards the mountains.

We turned off onto Simmonds Creek road.

Nic and Eric informed me these metal containers are for holding spare water for fire fighters.

Everyone was happy to be out riding on such a glorious day. Starting from top left to bottom right we have Nic, Eric, Darb and myself.

The gradient headed upwards as we rode South towards the Alpine National Park. The track never got steep, it was just smooth and cruisy climbing.

We still have a bit of climbing to do but the views are already awesome.

As I stopped to take some photos, Nic stopped to snack on some black berries. This area is teeming with black berry bushes. You don’t need riding food, it’s everywhere!

We regrouped at the turn off onto the Dungey track and continued to climb. The temperature was perfect for riding.

We all stopped again at some great looking black berry bushes.

Eric loved them so much so he got leftovers on his cheek!

After filling our bellies, we continued up to 1000 metres above sea level where the track leveled out. For adventure mountain biking, this is perfect.

The photos don’t do the views justice. 

Click here for a short video enjoying the moment.

Up here there is clean mountain water everywhere. We stopped and filled our water bottles. One bottle and zero food was needed for this loop, how good is that!

Crystal clear fresh water.

Nic didn’t need a water bottle!

This Dungey track turned and twisted for kilometres, cut into the side of a mountain generally flat. I really enjoyed it.

Eventually the track went down as the western branch of Kiewa River could be seen. We stopped and soaked up the views for a bit.

We then dropped down to the river at 800 metres above sea level.

The river was not too cold in fact it was invigorating. We stood in it and relaxed for a while soothing our feet. It’s not so bad getting your shoes and socks wet when the water feels so nice.

Photo by Nic Mills @ Alpenhorn Holiday Units

The water was very clean and lovely to drink.

One of the spokes on Darb’s fat bike collected some moss.

We got going again while discussing how nice it would be to camp here for the night. There were two picnic tables and soft grass to pitch the tent. However today was a day ride.

The track up out of the river was pretty steep but only for a few hundred meters. We then turned left onto West Kiewa logging Road. This road went back up with nice gentle gradients.

The track we had taken earlier, to get to the river, could be seen in the distance down in the valley below.

We continued rolling along enjoying the amazing views of the surrounding mountains.

Darb also thought the views were awesome.

We both stopped at times to take some photos.

We continued on with hungry appetites beginning to surface now, despite all the blackberries.

We were completing a big loop and heading back towards the township of Mount Beauty. Up here there is a huge network of old-skool mountain bike tracks called Big Hill. We stopped and gawked at the plaque showing the rabbit warren of trails.

Nic knew the best one to take that would spit us back out into the township of Mount Beauty. The single track we took was called the survey track.

After all the fire roads it was fun to roll down some mountain bike specific single track.

We soon ended up on a beautiful shaded track on the outskirts of Mount Beauty.

Mount Beauty is very bike friendly, even the local bakery cafe had a bike stand. We finished the ride there and re-fueled our bodies.

For me it was one of the most enjoyable mountain bike rides I have ever done. The views of the surrounding mountains was Just mesmerising. Thanks Nic for picking such a great loop and Darb and Eric for a great ride.

Now if you are a mountain biker, snow skier or just a traveller, I highly recommend Alpenhorn Holiday Units in the Victorian alpine region. Contact Nic and Annick on (03) 5754 4133.

Today we rode 58 kilometres with 2,095 metres of elevation gain. The GPS garmin devices carried by Nic and Darb suggested more around 1650 metres of elevation gain so I’m not sure why mine read so high. Having said all that, I would rate today’s ride 7 out of 10 on the tough-o-metre.