The Acheron Way

Some of you may know where it is, others may have heard of it but have no idea where it is. If you’re up to adding another 28 kilometres of interesting road to a Black or Reefton Spur ride, read on.

The Acheron Way starts from Narbethong near the Maroondah Highway exit to Marysville and finishes at Cement Creek car park, eight kilometres below Mt Donna Buang summit. It is 28 kilometres long but only 14 kilometres is sealed. According to the locals more sealing will be done in the near future.

I had recorded the route details on my MP3 recorder and started to write this article on my lap top, when I committed the cardinal sin of leaving everything in my car one night. I awoke the next morning to find mine and two other cars in the street broken into. They broke into my boot taking $8.5K replacement value of equipment. So this article is from memory.

I drive through the Black Spur weekly for work and during the recent road works I looked for an alternate route to Acheron. I found several, but the Acheron Way would give many bikers an enjoyable ride. As the Black Spur is now resealed, keeping below the speed limit and with no traffic, it can be done in less than 10 minutes. An alternate route home adds some pleasure to my weekly drive to Acheron.

The sealed section of the Acheron Way has some great radius bends even enjoyable in a car. The road is narrow with no centre line, only white posts at the edges. The last time I did it midweek, I only encountered two cars that I overtook and one gravel truck going the opposite way. There is a gravel quarry some distance up the road but I don’t believe they operate on weekends.

The first 4 kilometres of road from Narbethong is a little bumpy but then it smoothes out and you can get into a rhythm because there are no corners that take you by surprise. The object is to ride to the Acheron River, another 10kms up the road, stop at the bridge, then do a U turn and ride the 14 kms back again. I was doing most of the corners in the car between 80 and 100 km/h. There was less debris on the road than on the road down from Cement Creek to Warburton, in fact the road was dryer and smoother.

If you’re really crazy or like some heart stopping action the section past the bridge is gravel - very slippery. My ABS saved me on more than one occasion going through the corners, even at a slower pace. I would only recommend this gravel section for dirt bikes or thrill seekers only.

It took me 30 minutes to travel 28 kms to the Cement Creek car park and another 8 minutes to get to the Warburton Highway. The first 14 kms was very enjoyable.

Martin Hastie (Ford Forte sedan)