Once I had heard about this Rail Trail being completed I thought that we should check it out sometime. (Another link). We rather like the Boyne Valley area, having stayed at Glassford and Bulburin National Park several times. John came with us, and we had an uneventful drive before a quick stop at Calliope for morning tea.
We planned to camp at the Kalpower end but it looked like there was a campground at Builyan too, so we did a drive-by to see what it was like. It's just a paddock beside the railway line, but you can get hot showers and toilets at the Community Hall across the road.
Only a few other campers were at the Kalpower camping ground. A couple of horses were in the paddock to the right. After we set up camp, Darryl went to investigate a track he was interested in.
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| A couple of nice shelter sheds, which proved very useful with the rain |
Happy hour started a little bit early, and after dinner we had a tasty dried fruit and apple damper.
It rained, (fairly gently), through the night.
On Friday morning we started off around 7am to the rail trail. It was overcast with occasional raindrops, so nice and cool.
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| John wanted to check out that his bike trailer still worked |
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| The start of the Rail Trail at Barrimoon |
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| 700m past the bollards to the first tunnel (5 are fairly close to each other), then 1.7km to the last one |
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| The top of Dawes Range |
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| There are 6 tunnels altogether (this is No 6 as they are counted from the other end) |
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| The first tunnel still has it's rails and hogback, and you walk your bikes through |
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| The next tunnel with safety alcove |
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| Lovely views of the valleys |
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| Halfway through one tunnel they didn't quite meet |
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| This is the last, and curved tunnel, so you don't see daylight when you enter it |
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| The grasses and grasstrees looked almost silky |
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| Our first creek crossing, where the bridge has gone |
We made it the 11km (or so) to Golembil, where we had morning tea beside the bridge pillars of the bridge over Glassford Creek where Policeman Creek joins it.
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| A couple from our campground, who passed us, went all the way to Builyan, and were then returning |
After our break, we headed back up to the main camp. I could not have gone any further without a car shuttle, and really hit the wall just before we got back to Barrimoon.
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| We didn't notice this on the way down |
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| C. H. Quince 8 May 1924 - who built the wall |
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| The first, curved, tunnel on the way back |
There were also a couple of guys, who went the opposite way to us. We made it back to base camp by lunch. All afternoon there was light rain, so we had been pretty lucky. It also rained during the night.
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| A couple of butterflies |
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| Unfortunately, the lovely markings were caused by someone hacking at this tree with an axe |
John packed and drove home early Sat. We went via Kalpower Road, and had some lovely views of the countryside.
