I visited the picturesque Victorian region where the 'gold rush' never ended

It's 6.15am and I am pedalling out of Bendigo straight into a spring sunrise. Appropriately, given the shiny precious metal that made it the richest city in the world, in the 1880s, this morning's first light is suffused with gold.

Spreading from the emerging sun ahead, a molten yellow glow tinges everything, from the gravel of the O'Keefe Rail Trail on which I'm cycling and trackside tussock grasses to the undersides of the scattered clouds above.

It seems apt too, as I cycle into the native box tree forests that surround the city, that I am doing my own version of going for gold, attempting to ride the trail's entire 50 kilometres to Heathcote, for breakfast, before returning to Bendigo in time for lunch.

While my hurry is due to attending a conference in the city this afternoon, it's fair to say that the builders of the original rural train line that this trail follows, were not slacking either. It took them just 21 months, under the direction of Irish emigre and pioneer railway builder Andrew O'Keefe, to complete the line.

When it opened, in 1888, it included 50 bridges, 13 stations and linked the prosperous Victorian city with the country towns of Axedale, Knowsley and Heathcote, passing through forests, rich farmlands and beside teeming waterways like the Campaspe River, en route.

Given this region's prodigious late-19th-century wealth, it's easy to romanticise the past. However, one of the first trailside panels I stop beside, after about 10 kilometres, recalls a tragedy that occurred along the train line, on New Year's Day, 1900.

It happened at the McIvor Road rail crossing, when an excursion train heading to Axedale races collided with a two-horse cab taking Sunday school pupils for a picnic - the accident killed three young people and both horses.

Later, I pause at another display that commemorates the ill-fated Burke and Wills expedition, to cross Australia from south to north, during which both died; it came through this area in 1860.

Cycling steadily along the flat trail as the morning chill dissolves is, though, mostly a serene experience. Kangaroos hop away as I approach, colourful birds flit between yellow box and stringy bark trees and the forests I'm passing through are illuminated by golden wattle blooms.

Near the halfway point to Heathcote, I reach a replica of Axedale station with its restored railway wagon, and then the trail passes Campaspe River Reserve, once a bounteous source of food for the Dja Dja Wurrung, Taungurung and Yorta Yorta people.

I pause at a gum-shaded section of the gently-flowing river, which provides the ideal habitat for one of Australia's most eccentric-looking animals, the platypus.

I'm soon scooting through Knowsley State Forest, then skirting Lake Eppalock, a giant manmade reservoir created in the 1960s to help supply local farming communities.

While the rail line closed in 1958, the lake's construction, across its path, confirmed its demise. It wasn't until 1993, that it was partly repurposed as the O'Keefe Rail Trail, with the full route completed, in 2015.

By the time I reach Heathcote about 9.15am, I'm in need of coffee and breakfast to fuel my return and I freewheel along its main street - purportedly the longest of any Australian country town and punctuated by winery cellar doors and fine 19th-century facades - to find Fodder cafe, where both are supplied in abundance.

In fact, my smashed avocado with whipped feta, poached eggs, dukkha and basil pesto, is the finest brekky I've had in recent memory.

The writer had assistance from Rent My Bike Bendigo and Bendigo Region Tourism