The Great Ocean Road technically starts in Torquay, but you don’t actually see the ocean until you get to Anglesea. This coastal seaside town is working to add over 100km of singletrack.
Anglesea currently has about 30km of existing XC trails and has hosted a stop of the Shifty Fifty series for a number of years. But an opportunity prospectus published by the Surf Coast Council outlines a plan to more than triple the riding in the small coastal town.
With a small network of predominantly green and blue trails bordering the Eumeralla Scout Camp, the trails are tipped more towards folks just entering the sport, and many use the network here to rack up the kilometres of training for longer events.
“It buts up against the Surf Coast, so in a few spots, you get scenic views over the ocean. But it’s not super hilly, kind of meandering cross-country trails,” says Simon Barnfather from the Surf Coast Mountain Bike Club.
Anglesea also has a small dirt jump park with two jump lines, and a 4x track.
Located about 90 minutes from Melbourne with sandy soil, according to Barnfather the trails handle moisture well, and hold up year-round. And so the Surf Coast Council and the Club engaged World Trail to put together a concept plan that would not only triple the size of the Anglesea network, but also broaden its offering.
“The concept plan which we’ve been discussing with the local stakeholders, which will total up to about 107km, is nearly all existing illegal trails, which will be upgraded and weatherproofed to allow higher traffic and less maintenance,” he says. “A lot of these trails that are part of the expansion border Anglesea on all sides and are more gravity-oriented trails — jumps, drops, rock features and that kind of stuff.”
The plan also includes link tracks to Torquay and Aireys Inlet.
With the vast majority of the concept to formalise and upgrade singletrack that already exists, a big part of what is being proposed is adding signage, adding linking trails to improve connectivity and an official trailhead. It would also mean the Surf Coast MTB Club could go in to do maintenance.
As it stands now, the Club can’t maintain or promote this subset of the trail network, despite the Club hosting monthly dig days at Euramella.
Working with parks
It’s not often that Parks Victoria and the mountain bike community see eye to eye. From the insane hoops, the team behind the Indigo Epic had to jump through to get the trail corridor approved, to the land manager caught knowing presenting misleading incorrect information during the Warburton EES IAC hearings.
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But in the case of Anglesea, Parks has taken more of a live-and-let-live approach.
“Parks Victoria has remit over the existing trail network. Over a long period of time, they have come to trust the Club to maintain the trails, and that really helped smooth out the approval and to get their support of the concept plan.
Gaining momentum
The Anglesea project has found the support of both major political parties and has been identified as a priority of the Growing Adventure Tourism in the Barwon South West Region Strategy, the Geelong Regional Alliance Strategy and the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parts Authority (GORCAPA).
“They (GORCAPA) were involved with the revamp at Forrest, and now that that’s wrapped up and they have the green light to complete a big hiking circuit down towards Apollo Bay, the Anglesea project is their number one trail building priority going forward,” says Barnfather.
Barnfather also tells Flow stakeholders like Parks Vic, DWELP, the Surf Coast Shire, local businesses, Traditional Owners, and the Anglesea, Aireys Inlet Society for the Protection of Flora and Fauna (ANGAIR) have all been engaged and are on board with the project moving ahead.
According to Barnfather, the Surf Coast MTB club attended the most recent stakeholder where GORCAPA did a presentation on the project and hosted a question-and-answer session, and there was no one shouting opposition to the project.
“There’s good support all around, and we keep thinking, ‘where is the blocker here,” says Barnfather. “We just don’t seem to have that group.”
Anglesea is a tourist town, and with that, it seems the local community sees the benefit. According to the Opportunity Prospectus, during the implementation phase, a total of $4.6-million in economic benefit is expected as well as the creation of 18 jobs. Once complete, they are forecasting a $24-million benefit to the local economy and 122 jobs based on a 10% growth scenario, and $70-million towards the local economy and 352 jobs on a 30% growth scenario.
This, of course, comes after the tourist economy in the area took a significant hit. While being a tourist town in such proximity to Melbourne allows for a massive catchment of potential visitors, Anglesea is still recovering from the past couple of years.
“During COVID, people couldn’t get out of Melbourne. We still had some people coming in from out of state, but it (Anglesea) really suffered because it relies on tourism,” he says.
For such a small town with only a modest amount of legal singletrack, there is still a significant population of riders, with over 350 members of the Surf Coast MTB club.
There is also a lot of walking track and hiking in the region — like the Great Ocean Walk, which has just received a significant cash infusion — the area that houses the unsanctioned trails is a former plantation, so it’s not pristine untouched wilderness. That said, there are still some areas of ecological sensitivity, which have been taken into account and avoided in the concept plan.
It’s all about the money
The next hurdle the Anglesea MTB development needs to vault is funding. According to the Opportunity Prospectus, they need about $3-million to complete the project; the Council is currently trying its luck with the Regional Development Victoria Funding rounds, as well as other state and federal funding opportunities.
“Originally, the Council was going to sump $300,000 to get the planning and assessment completed and then apply for the $2.7-million needed to complete the project. But they’ve said we’d prefer to do this in one, and get all the funding to come through at the same time. That way, we’ll be shovel-ready straight off the back of the planning assessment,” says Barnfather.
Until the project is funded, it’s hard to say exactly how long it will be before your descending black gravity trails overlooking Anglesea Beach. But the Club is confident that dirt will start moving within two years.
