2023-10-25 -37 144

Location

In a carpark in Brimbank park, in Melbourne's northwest.

Participants

Stevage

Expedition 1 (Cam)

Expedition 2 (John)

Expedition 3 (Steve)

Departure

At last! A geohash in a good location on a day when I have time to go! I'm not missing this opportunity. But first I need to plant a tomato. Which somehow takes 4 hours.

I am slightly peckish, so I have a piece of bread with lemon butter. Yes, it turns out that lemon butter keeps perfectly well in the fridge for 10 months. But...

I'm still hungry, so I do it again, but with a bigger piece of bread. Equally delicious. But...

I'm still hungry, so I try one more time, even bigger piece of bread this time. The deliciousness of the lemon butter remains undiminished. But...

I'm still hungry. Perhaps time for a change of tack. I put a banana to the task. It comes up short.

I'm still hungry. I have a bowl of museli.

I'm still hungry. It's just getting weird at this point, so I give up and get on my bike. The sky is looking threatening.

Approach

I cruise west through the Brunswicks, incident-free apart from a brief moment when a car fails to notice me or my high-vis, almost drives into my path, and laughs it off with a gay wave of the driver's hand.

Onto the Maribyrnong Trail, and the sky has moved beyond threatening, and is making direct statements of the kinds of aggression it is about to unleash upon me.

Up and over whatever that hill is called, and the sky makes good on its threats and unleashes rain upon me. I counter with my poncho, to which the sky realises it has no response, and shortly gives up.

I reach Solomon's Ford, which John had crossed on foot, and Lachie claims to have previously carried a bike across. I was looking forward to repeating the feat, until I realise that geography means that crossing the ford now would take me the wrong direction.

Into a closed section of trail. The council have kindly signposted just how dangerously closed the trail is at approxmiately 100m intervals. Very dangerous. It's true that the main surface of the trail appears to have washed off in a flood, turning a gentle bike cruise into a modest mountain bike adventure.

I adventure forth. It's lovely. There are many birds. Today's featured artists were Willie wagtails, welcome swallows (hundreds!), and the ones I call "grey cranes" but are probably some kind of egret. I was going to look it up and pretend to be some kind of bird expert, but really, we're all just faking it here.

There is a lady ahead on the path, walking in the same direction. I politely ding my bell. Over the years, I've seen a range of reactions to a bike bell ding. Often they move to the left. Sometimes they wave. Sometimes they call "thank you". Sometimes they look around to verify that the sound that sounded like a bike bell was indeed just that, and definitely attached to a bike. Sometimes they get startled and make weird noises. This lady, did none of those things.

She surrendered. She froze in place, and raised her hands above her head, saying something that ended in "...ide". I was flummoxed. "You're ok", I called, hopefully soothingly, and slowed to give her a wide berth.

She apologetically explained that she couldn't decide which side to go to. And muttered something about other cyclists going past very fast.

Arrival

The path then got a lot better, turning into asphalt which the floods couldn't wash away. We were close. We were in a park! There was a cow! It wasn't real, so I gave it a cuddle to make it feel better. It didn't work, because it wasn't real.

There's a car park! With cars parked in it. And one car slowly driving around, looking a bit confused. An L-plater. A perfect place for it.

I pop the bike down and stride over to the hash point, realising a bit late in the piece that it's much further away than I thought. Extra strides, then, success!

Return

I don't really know which way I want to go home, but my phone battery is running low and I am of course hungry, so I opt for a slightly shorter route with some back streets.

The back streets are actually really good! And here is Steele Creek Trail again, and it's great! And there are hills! And views! And that gorgeous late-afternoon-I-just-did-a-thunderstorm lighting scheme I'm so fond of.

I find a sushi shop in Puckle Street, and then some hills, and more streets, and then I am home.