Winter Solstice // 300km

The Winter Solstice 300 is an event that celebrates the beautiful gravel trails of the Shipwreck Coast and Otway National Park. At 300km long, it’s a great route for first-timers looking to get into bike packing and a good challenge for experienced riders.

This bike packing route runs along the shipwreck coast and into the incredible Otway National Park, dropping down into the coastal town of Lorne before climbing back up into the Otways then the final stretch of fast, flat gravel into Geelong. The start is at the Warnambool train station and finish at the Waurn Ponds train station. The start time is set at 15 minutes after the first train from Melbourne gets into Warnambool and the end is a V Line station as well so this will hopefully allow those coming down from Melbourne to get an easy train home at the end. 

The route is 300km of mostly gravel roads with some sandy double track and short sections of paved road. Being only 300km it is the perfect route to dip your toe in. For those worried about the distance there are camp sites in the Otways and Lorne is about 2/3rds of the way which provides great options to break it up into a couple of days. Anything with 40mm of rubber will be fine and a hard tail MTB will have its place as well.