The Otway Rip

Anyone keen on a summery, beachy, (and hopefully) chill bikepack before Uni begins?

I'm considering riding the Otway Rip route and am gauging interest to see if anyone wants to come along.

This route has been on my list for a while - it's the only route on bikepacking.com (check it out here) that lies fully in Victoria, and it goes through the stunningly varied terrain of the Otway ranges in south west Victoria. This route truly has it all - waterfalls, rolling hills, beaches, rainforests, and rail trails. 

The route has a total distance of 257km and 3500m of elevation gain. Depending on who's interested, I would like to run this as a 3 day or 4 day trip. My preference would be for 4 days - this will allow for more sightseeing, relaxing, and swimming. It absolutely can be done in 3 days though at least one of those days might be more of a type 2 fun grind.

I've listed this as intermediate as you will need to be an independent camper and have gone on at least one bikepacking trip before, and be comfortable with riding ~90km and gaining ~1500m a day, however, the route is not technical and the area is not too remote. Any bike with at least 30mm tyres will do the trick.

This is a rough 4 day itinerary:

• Friday: Catch the 1pm train from Southern Cross to Camperdown, ride 65km with 400m ascent to Port Campbell
• Saturday: Ride 90km with 1500m ascent to Aire river crossing
• Sunday: Ride 70km with 1400m ascent to Lake Elizabeth
• Monday: Ride 30km with 200m ascent to Birregurra, take the 10:56pm or 1:50pm train home

If anyone is interested in becoming a bikepacking leader and would like to shadow this trip as a part of their training, please reach out to me.