Spanning 100 miles (161km) from Yarraman down to Wulkuraka near Ipswich, the Brisbane Valley Rail Trail (BVRT) is a completely traffic‑free and off‑road multi-surface trail built along a disused rail line in Queensland. It is regarded as the longest and best of it’s kind in the entire country.

I’ve been wanting to hit up the BVRT for quite some time now, so with winter creeping in down south I headed north to Brisbane to meet up with Shaun and kick off my first BVRT adventure!

For this trip we decided to stay in Esk, roughly two-thirds of the way down the trail. It’s an old country town that is small enough to still be quiet and charming, while large enough to have a pub with decent food, a supermarket, and a couple of cafes. Esk is the perfect base to ride the entire trail over two days.

Esk makes a fantastic base to explore in both directions.

Day 1: Yarraman to Esk (94km)

After a pre-dawn drive from our accommodation in Esk up to Yarraman, Shaun and I were dropped at the start by our lovely support crew (April and Samantha). As we unloaded the bikes from the rack I realised I had come in underdressed for the conditions. I was expecting a little chill, but had not packed for single-digit temperatures. Bare legs, lightweight arm warmers and thin long fingered gloves. Don’t let the sunny photo below fool you, it was barely 5 degrees C (40F) as we set off.

Grinning under the Yarraman Station arch, ready to start the BVRT!

Hoping it’d soon warm up (spoiler, it didn’t for over an hour) we smiled for a departing photo. Out of Yarraman the gradient is predominantly downhill for the first 40km. At only -2% or so on rough gravel surfaces with crossing and cattle grids to negotiate it’s not really a descent though, you still have to pedal most of the way. Speaking of cattle grids…

Barely 8km into the ride, I was on Shaun’s wheel as he rode over a longer cattle grid. I watched on horror as his rear wheel slid sideways on the frosty metal grid, sending him face first into the ground. He hit the dirt HARD. For what felt like an eternity (but was probably 5 seconds) he did not move. Thankfully, he got up. We assessed his wounds; a badly scuffed up and bleeding knee, torn up shin, and heavily grazed shoulder. A lesser man may have called it quits.

Testament to Shaun’s toughness and determination to complete the BVRT, he shook himself off, we cleaned up his wounds as best we could, and carried on. By now the temperature had dropped to close-to-freezing and both of us were suffering. My teeth were actually chattering and I had lost feeling in my fingers and toes. I took in as much of the gorgeous scenery as I could to try and distract myself from the near hypothermia.

We met up with our support crew in Linville (42km) to assess Shaun’s damage. By this stage I had just about regained feeling in my fingers! I took a moment to bathe in the morning sun as we debriefed the ladies on events so far. Apparently Linville has a great coffee shop (so the support crew told me) but the line was too long for us to hang around. Still slightly underdressed and definitely undercaffeinated, we decided to crack on.

By hour three, I was slowly starting to defrost.

The section from Linville to Esk (52km) is predominantly flat, although there are a couple of small climbs that can catch you out on tiring legs. The constant pressure on the pedals and “drag” from the trail surface can quickly drain your energy. There are a number of big “dips” to negotiate where an old rail bridge would have crossed. Some of these are getting new bridges which should make for a smoother ride.

At multiple points on the trail you’ll encounter herds of cows grazing by the side or even standing in the way. Mostly they’ll mooooove out of the way as you roll by, but some will stand their ground! They’re well used to cyclists coming through.

We finally rolled into Esk after almost five hours on the pedals. While the route profile makes it look very downhill, we’d still accumulated over 500m of elevation gain across the day. Shaun was a little worse for wear so he rode straight back to the accommodation. I couldn’t quite leave it there, adding a small detour around Esk to hit the 100km milestone.

With the longest day out of the way first, we enjoyed a big take-away dinner from the Grand Esk Hotel before calling it an early night in preparation for day two, Esk to Wulkuraka.