A slow start, and a cold morning. After breakfast it took forever to get coordinated and underway — last night’s red wine taking its toll. The coffee shops of Yarra Junction beckoned, we’d only just started riding by the time we got there and settled inside to thaw out and apply coffee to aching heads.
Leaving Yarra Junction the local traffic was a bit too obnoxious — as the drivers along here often seem to be. We retired to the Lilydale-Warburton bike trail to see whether this improved our outlook on life; far quieter and better for the aching heads, but now very much in need of regrading, repair, and resurfacing, and packed with recreational cyclists of wildly varying skill levels — definitely a track to ride along at a very sedate pace, and paying extreme attention at all times! Somewhere around one of the smaller towns we even came upon a car driving up the bike trail; apparently it is part of their driveway, but nobody has thought to put a warning sign on the track telling cyclists that they may come head on around a corner and meet cars!
At Mt Evelyn we left the trail and returned to the road, and one of the most fantastic road surfaces I can remember riding on for some time. A magnificent swooping curvy run down the hill, effortlessly reaching the 70km/hr speed limit on the way down!
The rest of the way home was the usual ride from the outskirts of Melbourne back to home, unlike a lot of easter holiday rides we were thankfully free of the dangers posed by caravan-towing motorists — motorists who forget that the ‘van is half a metre wider than their car as they pass. Into Melbourne along the highway, stop for lunch at a suburban bakery in Heathmont, back along the highway then head south when we got to Warrigal road. Warrigal road is known territory, up and down, crossing the lines of the hills till we’re back in Oakleigh, home for a shower and a change of clothes!
As usual, the official meeting place and luggage drop off was at the Wayfarer Inn in South Melbourne; I’ve no idea why, the place isn’t a pub anymore and seems to only barely tolerate having a bunch of a hundred cyclists turn up. A hundred hungry cyclists; but they close the kitchen while people are still trying to order food. A hundred thirsty cyclists, but they haven’t turned the beer taps on, only bottles are available. They really don’t seem to care, but I guess this is the last time. Lack of food meant that Jo and I only stayed a while, one drink and a few goodbyes, then off to get some food in more pleasant surroundings — Silvio’s pizza, piping hot and on the table in under ten minutes with a smile and a beer and a wave from the staff.
The Easter Deadly Treadly is over. The last ever Easter Deadly Treadly is over. What will we do next Easter?
Where?
- Wesburn (37° 46’ 0S, 145° 37’ 60E)
