Making Tracks

Maribyrnong River Trail(tracks edited for privacy reasons)

Today we cycled with another family from Brunswick to Flemington and back. The weather forecast was “mostly dry” but the sky looks threatening. We decided to take a chance and go out anyway.

We took the usual route to Dockland using the Upfield Bikeway which connects to the Capital City Trail around Princes Park. The journey was fairly uneventful but at the back of my mind I do wonder if we are going to make it. We have been been doing much cycling lately.

We stop at Dockland briefly for lunch. We bought ourselves a cheap lunch at Costco and took the bike path along Footscray Road toward Maribyrnong River. We cycled upstream on the easten bank. This is also where Flemington Race Course is. We observed the activities around the race course but wasn’t able to catch a glimse of the action on the track.

A new temple along the Maribyrnong River

On the way back, we crossed the bridge to the western bank. As we passed by a buddist temple in construction, I spotted a Geocache nearby on the GPS received mounted on my handle bar. It didn’t take us long to locate the hide. We did even need to read the description. After signing the log and took some pictures, we continous downstream toward Footscray Road.

From Footscray Road, we headed east toward the Moonee Ponds Creek/Capital City Trail. We continue on to the Upfield Bikeway home at Princes Park.

It was about 28km of cycling today. The weather held up but was drizzling a bit when we got home. It was a cool day: around 18C. A bit cooler than ideal for a bike ride but we nevertheless had a good day.

Return Trip to Docklands(tracks edited for privacy reasons)

The weather forecast for the day was excellent. Although afternoon cloud was in the forecast, there was enough sunny breaks to make it one of the best winter days in a long while.

We cycled down the Upfield Bikeway at about 3pm. That meets up with the Capital City Trail. We went past the Zoo until Flamington Bridge station where the trail joins Moonee Ponds Creek. From the Zoo to this point, it was mostly downhill which makes it easy. The hard part is in the return journey.

Moonee Creek takes us to Footscray Road. The bike path along Footscray Road takes up to Shopping Town in Docklands. We pushed our bikes to the waterfront where we stopped for some ice-cream and snacks to replenish our energy for the journey home.

While riding back to home, we realised that we were going past a recently placed geocache. We decided to attempt this cache since it was only a few metres from the Footscray Road bike path. It was a relative easy find although the GPS coords was a bit off.

Whilst the journey to Docklands was mostly downhill, the journey back require us to climb a few hills between Flemington Bridge Station and the Zoo. It wasn’t a difficult climb but we wished that the climb was in the first half of the trip rather than the second half.

We reached home at about 5pm – a 2 hour trip. The total distance travelled was about 16 km. Overall, a really pleasant bike ride on a lovely winter afternoon.

Trip to the Melbourne Museum(tracks edited for privacy reasons)

Today is the Queen’s Birthday holiday. In contrast with the past week, the sun was shining today. We decided to make a trip to the Melbourne Museum on our bikes.

We decided not to put on our cycling cloths. Instead we were in casual street cloths. We first took the Upfield bike path until it to connects to the Capital City Trail. Then we headed east on the Capital City Trail until junction of Canning Street and Park Street. From this point we headed south on Canning Street to Carlton Gardens.

Canning Street was once described by a friend as a freeway for bikes. This street is mostly flat and quiet. Furthermore, the bike lane is one of the widest we have seen.

When rode through Carlton as one of us was under 12 (a privilege of parents with young children). This got us right to the Museum’s door step.

The Museum was very busy today. We are members of the museum which allow us to enter the museum without fee. There was a special exhibition on the Titanic but we decided to give it a miss. Instead we visited the Dinosaur Walk, Bugs Alive and the marine exhibit.

As the sky start to become cloudy, we decided to head home on the same route we came on. The track was logged using a Garmin Vista HCx. As we did not allow the GPS receiver to settle before the trip, the elevation data was complete inaccurate. The entire trip was about 13km and the presence of the sun made it a thoroughly enjoyable cycling trip.