The plan today was to bike from the city, along the Yarra River as far as the Weatherfield Boat House. There were a few errors in our calculations. Di thought the ride was about 8k and mostly in shade. Neither of these thoughts were correct!! It was in fact 14k, no shade and a stinking hot 33c.
We got about 8k and were then driven back by the heat. We managed to find a coffee shop and resupply ourselves with lots of liquid before making the ride back.
We all look a lot happier in this photo as we were about two k from the finish line, rehydrated and caffeined up. You would really think we would know better than to go for a bike ride in such heat.
The ride took us about three hours and were utterly exhausted after it but proud we had made it back alive.
On our way back to the apartment we came across a replica of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG or better known as the “G”) made out of gingerbread. It was very well done but the humidity was getting the better of the gingerbread and there appeared to be some structural failure starting to happen.
Whilst still trying to crawl our way home we popped into the Young and Jackson pub where the very famous Chloe is housed. Pretty sure we gave you the history on Chloe in a previous blog back in October. Paula and Dex had never seen her and as you can see, the boys were rather enamoured with her. Had some further rehydration and then headed out again.
Across from the Young and Jackson is Flinders Street Railway Station which is the main station for all the suburban trains and is the focal point for Melbourne City. It sits on the famous corner of Swanston and Flinders Street and on the bank of the Yarra River.
The main station building, completed in 1909, is a cultural icon of Melbourne, with its prominent dome, arched entrance, tower and clocks–one of the city’s most recognisable landmarks. It is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Melburnian saying “I’ll meet you under the clocks” refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance, which indicate the time-tabled time of departure for trains on each line; another saying, “I’ll meet you on the steps”, refers to the wide staircase underneath these clocks.
We had four blogs back to the apartment but instead of walking we opted for a tram as the heat still hadn’t abated.
We all looked rather shattered but Fras decided it was a good time to take a photo so we ended up with half the tram being included of which we said it would be posted on our blog and they would all be made famous – that seemed to make them all very happy and cheerful.
After a few hours of serious nana naps and much needed showers we headed out to meet up with Dex’s cousin Aaron and his wife Lisa and children Mackenzie and Jack for dinner. Aaron is a Senior Sargeant in the Traffic Enforcement division whilst Lisa is a Senior Sargeant in the City dealing with a crew of 100 junior officers. Both have pretty tough demanding jobs so we take our hat off to them.
Rowkin Rovings Blog 