I'll Drink My Own Coffee, Thank You.

I still haven't quite let die my ambition of averaging 200km/month on my bicycle so, leaving Roger to coddle his back with lots of walking, off I went on my bicycle. For the sake of exploration I went somewhere new, and discovered oases of vegetation and very pleasant cycling right beside some very busy roads.

If the cycling has to be beside a very busy road, this is how it should be done.

 

Birds sang in the bushes, frogs croaked in puddles, rabbits lolloped out of my way, and butterflies fluttered around in the sunshine. 

A little bit of country even popped up, complete with tractor.

 

There was so much water around that some parts of the bicycle path had grown a good crop of slime and moss, which made the cycling slightly soggy with a higher than average chance of slippage.
 

I did not slip. 

Out in walking land, Roger drove the car to Brighton and walked beside the beach to St Kilda. The beach at St Kilda was full of little Nippers all training madly for beach rescues, all the while not being able to swim in said beach because all the rain had flushed all sorts of unmentionables into the bay, rendering it unswimmable.  The Nippers watched sadly while a golden retriever and a Labrador, unperturbed by the unmentionables, frolicked happily in the waters.

Sad days for little Nippers.

For once Roger's sunshiney beach photos failed to send me into fits of envy.  I was having my own fun in Braeside Park, tootling along congenial gravel paths through Redgum lowlands and wetlands bursting with birds.

Perfect weather in a perfect place to cycle.

Through wetlands recently replenished by rain.

And past a wooden horse and jockey.  Because there is always a random statue of some forgotten Melbourne Cup winner and his jockey.  I don't know the details because I didn't read the plaque.  Sorry, not sorry.

 Roger was enjoying himself far too much back at the beach. "Its such a shame!" He messaged me. "I just fell into a seat at a table and lo! a coffee appeared in front of me and I just had to drink it."

By now I was riding beside the Waterways Lake (and there's a low-effort name if ever I heard one), drinking lukewarm water out of my scungy water bottle.  "Never mind," Roger messaged breezily. "I'll drink an extra coffee for you."  He's always willing to sacrifice himself like that.

Yes, very pretty and all that.  Where's coffee?

As I read his message I noticed a middle aged couple amble past with their dog, each of them holding a takeaway coffee cup. Employing great detective skills, I back tracked them and discovered a cafe lurking just around the corner. The grass was dotted with cute little umbrella-ed tables, the waters of the lake sparkled in the sun, and the presence of seven bicycles in the parking lot was testament to the seal of bicyclist approval. Thus it was, driven purely by the need to protect my spouse from caffeine overload, that I sat in the sun with my own coffee and very nice it was too.

That's better.  Om nom nom.

 

Fortified by caffeine and sugar, on I rode around the lake stopping on occasion to take photos and enjoying the birds/frogs/butterflies. 

 

And flowers.  At least they stayed still for photographs.

The lake was very full so some paths were under water and I became so distracted by taking photos and generally enjoying the frogs/birds/butterflies that I became somewhat misplaced and had to do some backtracking, but eventually a boardwalk rescued me and I made it out of the wetlands and onto the Mordialloc Creek trail in one (albeit slightly muddy) piece.  

Choose your own adventure.

 

After all that I hopped on the train home and then nearly missed my stop because I was too busy swapping cycling where-to-goes with the couple who caught the train with matching his and hers bright red shiny bicycles. I got off the train suffering a severe case of shiny red bicycle envy, and with a new commitment to wearing my current bicycle out as fast as I could in order to justify buying a new one.  Oh, and to get 200 km/month, of course.

Cat for fun.