Cat Herding, out of bed at 7:00 to be breakfasted, organised, packed with tandem and trailer and out the door for the 09:13 train. Sounds simply in theory and I guess it was in practice, even if we did end up walking across to the station with the trailer only half packed and the rest of the gear just stowed on the seat where Cam would sit.

Oakleigh to Richmond, Cam delighting in the names of all the stations as they came over the PA system, then off the train and across to the next platform to wait for the Lilydale train on platform 10.

While we were waiting we spied Alistair and his shiny yellow Co-motion coming up the ramp. Not just a tandem, a triple and trailer! I mean how else do you tour with two kids? Just a trifle tricky to load on and off trains, and today was his first attempt at getting it onto a suburban train — Jo and I stood back and left them to the front-most compartment while we got ready to load Cam, trailer and tandem into the next door.

I even managed to get the BV RiderLog iPhone application to work for me, third time lucky, my attempts on a lunch-time ride and commute home yesterday had failed due to operator error.

Stopped for a half-hour play at the Woori Yallock station to let Cam run around and we were just about ready to leave when we spotted another tandem heading towards us from Lilydale. Mark and Helen had been to Tony’s celebration in town then caught a later train out to Healesville, without trailer and with a little more fitness they’d quickly caught us on the trail.

The road from Woori Yallock to Healesville had been described as a “picturesque quiet country road” which I think was overdoing it a little in the poetic direction. Late on a Saturday afternoon it was narrow, double-yellow centre lines and endless high-speed 4WDs, light trucks and utes, none of whom gave a damn about the laws regarding overtaking across solid lines, speeding, or overtaking safely. If the road was empty they went flying past on the wrong side of the road, when traffic approached from head-on half the time they just pulled out and overtook anyway. The winners would have to be the occupants of the Kingswood ute who were yelling out the window at us as they went screaming past way too close because there was oncoming traffic, far more important to get to Healesville ahead of us than to risk driving over a tandem, trailer and three people at 100km/hr.

…