Victoria Route and Operator Advice

Greetings. I know you will be a wee bit distracted this weekend but looking for some advice.
I am hoping to make a trip to Vic sometime towards the end of the year and as part of that spend a week on the road, preferably on a bike.
I have looked into rental companies around the Melbourne area, pricing and bike choice seem to be much of a muchness and is pretty much down to what I want to be sat on for the period in question. Are there any operators with a particularly good reputation or anyone has dealt with personally they can recommend?

I am also wondering about the route. I wondered if a loop from Melbourne to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road and back through the Grampians or perhaps the national parks further North is 'doable' in a week or 10 days? Or is there another route you local boys would recommend. Am not set on ending up in Adelaide other than I spent a couple of days there a few years ago and actually quite liked it.

Cheers for any suggestions you can offer.

Melbourne to Adelaide via the Grampians is a easy 2 day ride, it depends on how much you want to stop and look around to how many days you want to add to that. 

The Grampians is a very worthwhile ride as well, not huge so it won't add a lot of time to the trip. In the 90's I used to regularly ride Adelaide to Melbourne on the Dukes and Western Highways in a day, an extra day will see you have plenty of time to explore the Grampians.

Which National Parks are you referring to further North? Some of the National Parks and Conservation Parks are just massive areas of Mallee Scrub with a few dirk roads or track through them.

If you give us enough notice, work permitting  I'm sure paul, Rayman, myself and possibly others could do a day ride with you around the Fleurieu Peninsula  while you are in Adelaide.

If Adelaide isn't important then you could make a nice ride out of all three of these roads.Great Alpine Road, Eildon-Jamieson Rd, and Mansfield-Whifield Rd

These first 2 maps would be the way I'd incorporate the Great Ocean Rd, it keeps you closer to the coast and off of the main interstate highways for a lot of it, the GOR is undoubtedly sensational but there is also a lot of spectacular coast line further West, both still within VIC and once you cross into SA.

Once you cross into SA just past Nelson you head for Mt Gambier, an extinct Volcanoe with the Blue Lake and the other crater lakes pretty much in the city centre, there are also numerous limestone caves and sinkholes that you can visit.

Heading out of "The Mt" go through Millicent and onto the fishing ports of Beachport, Robe and Kingston, then back onto National Highway 1 and along the picturesque Coorong National Park then onto Adelaide

You could do this in 2 days but if you want a bit of a look around you'd want 3, if the bike you hire is suitable for dirt roads you could take a few detours through the National Park





Heading back to Melbourne I'd leave on the Dukes Hwy (becomes Western Hwy in VIC) but turn off at Keith and head for Naracoorte which is home to World Heritage Listed limestone caves which are worth a visit.
From there head East towards the Grampians (through Edenhope, next SA/VIC ride destination), when you get to Cavendish, head North and come in the back way to Halls Gap through the Grampians, then head back South to Dunkeld through the full length of the Grampians, from there, onto Ballarat and then Melbourne, you would want at least 2 days, possibly 3 to have a good look around for the return trip.





Depending on how much time you had while in Adelaide, we could arrange a day trip with you close by in the Adelaide Hills and/or Fleurieu Peninsula.
If you had a couple of days to spare and we had enough notice I'd do a overnighter with you, if you already see enough Alpine type roads and want to check out a bit of the real Australian Outback something like this map takes in The Adelaide Hills (including the National Motor Museum at Birdwood) the Barossa Valley & Clare Valley wine regions and the Flinders Ranges which are supposed to be one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world with spectacular scenery

awesome! cheers folks, really good info there on all counts. If I time this right I could easily arrange an extra day or two and do the suggested meet up in Adelaide, that would be brilliant.
Sometimes, half the fun is in the planning eh?