Finally checked this place out. I skipped the whole riding up from Cotter Bend thing, there is enough space to park a handful of cars at the gate, and I was one of only two cars there, other was guy walking his dogs who saw a couple of times.
The loop is around 6.6 kms with ~130m of elevation, but it takes longer than you expect. Its very tight and twisty the whole way and doesn’t break into flow sections much at all. It’s all pretty tame too, I think a hardtail is probably best choice here to make it a bit more interesting and for scrambling up the numerous short steep bits. Trail bike was of course fine, just didnt feel like I needed to be on one.
I went anti-clockwise, but you can do both. It’s a well built trail overall and a lot of work has gone into fixing drainages and a couple of bridges over the little gullys. There is certainly room to build more here, and good topology, I hope for some techy trails and flow sections cutting through the middle, with this loop as the main trunk linking everything up around the outside or something like that.
It was also bloody cold with the fog and forest combining to let no sun in. The fog cleared on my second lap and was much nicer getting patches of sun, but you are in the forest nearly the whole way. This bodes well for summer though, when other trails are too hot, this might be a nice place to get in a lap in the shade.
Overall its a nice pedally loop in a spot they can really build on. Its also a nice alternative on the weekends when Stromlo is too packed and Kowen is too far (because you had an imperial stout on Sat night and slept through Sunday alarm...).