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For an outing fueled by South Australia’s best-known beverage,
head for the Clare Valley Riesling Trail, named after the region’s
top grape. The hills here are home to more than 40 wineries,many
of which you can reach via loops off the main 21-mile drag. The
oldest is Sevenhill Cellars, started by Austrian Jesuits in 1851 and
still operated by the brotherhood. Sevenhill’s grounds include a
monastery and the Gothic Revival Saint Aloysius Church. In addition
to tasting rooms and“cellar doors”—the wineries’ retail spaces—
there are plenty of trail-friendly businesses in the valley, such as
coffee shops, pubs and bed-and-breakfasts.
Several hours fromMelbourne, Victoria’s Murray to the Mountains Rail Trail—built on a rail line
that connected rural Victoria until the 1980s—is one of the most visited in the country. Sixty-five
miles of sealed surface take you through the farmland of the Ovens Valley, beneath the Victorian
Alps. For some altitude, visit Mount Buffalo National Park near the town of Porepunkah, or take
the leg up to Beechworth (pictured here), a former gold-mining town in the foothills that now
caters to tourists.
alpine ranges and sandy coastland. Private
lines carted livestock, timber, sugarcane
and the spoils of mining to the seaports.
Fast-forward to the early 1990s, when
efforts to reclaim some of these long-aban-
doned lines picked up steam. RailTrails
Australia was founded in 1994 in Victoria,
which continues to lead other states in
rail-trail development. To date, the grow-
ing rail-trail movement has helped create
100 rail-trails throughout the country.
Aussie rail-trailers are a friendly
bunch, especially along the rural routes.
“People are quite happy to stop and
have a chat,” McCrohan says, and towns
along the trails are catering more and
more to these crowds with cafés and
bed-and-breakfasts.
Here are a few snapshots from some of
Australia’s most popular rail-trails. If you
decide to explore them in person, check
out RailTrails Australia’s new website
(
www.railtrails.org.au
) for maps and
trail descriptions.
Katy June-Friesen (katyjunefriesen.com) is a
freelance writer and editor inWashington, D.C.
When she’s not writing about arts, culture, his-
tory and the natural world, she likes to head
west to the Blue Ridge Mountains or east to the
Chesapeake Bay.
Murray to the Mountains
RailTrails Australia