July 17, 2015
A little bit of rain won't stop us: Until 4pm at least
Since the moment that Dea arrived in Melbourne the news had been talking about the cold and the bad weather, storm fronts and snow in the mountains, and colder than normal temperatures. It wasn’t ideal timing for a bike tour, but it was clear that nothing was going to put Dea off, and she was bursting with excitement as she loaded up her bike for the first time. I was also similarly happy. I couldn’t believe she was really here, that she had come all this way to build a bike and to cycle with me. A bit of miserly weather wasn’t going to stop us now.
We’d calculated a route out of Melbourne in an easterly direction that would make use of bicycle trails and small roads as much as possible. That meant we took a rather meandering route that was sometimes difficult to navigate, but it was definitely worth it because most of the time it didn’t even feel like we were in the city at all. Some of the trails went through woods, parks and alongside creeks. The streets we did take were through residential neighbourhoods. I hoped the lack of traffic here would ease Dea back into cycle touring gently, but I hadn’t taken into account the hilly nature of the Melbourne suburbs. Some of the gradients would have been enough to make even experienced cyclists struggle. Matter of fact some of them did make me struggle, but Dea found them no problem. I would labour up behind and arrive at the top of a 20% climb, puffing and wheezing, to find Dea beaming with joy and not even slightly out of breath. This girl was something special.
It had been a great start and even the rain had mostly held back to a light drizzle at worst, allowing us to enjoy the day. Then as we cycled along on an empty trail through grassy fields, laughing and joking, I looked up and saw a whole crowd of kangaroos watching us fifty metres away. I stopped and shouted “Look Dea, kangaroos!” partly because I didn’t want either of us to get hit by one, but also mostly because she had never seen kangaroos before. We stopped and watched them and Dea smiled and stared and I took photographs and told them to stay away from my nicely welded frame.
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At about four in the afternoon it started to rain again, a little heavier now, and we took refuge in a sheltered picnic bench alongside another bicycle trail. We had taken our time all day, enjoying it and smelling the roses along the way, and consequently we weren’t even out of Melbourne yet. But as luck would have it we were close to a patch of trees near to a creek that provided a perfect hideaway for our tent and after eating dinner at the picnic table we made camp. It had been such a nice first day - a day in which I had repeatedly been doing double-takes every time that I saw Dea and realised how lucky I was to be able to do what I love doing with someone so amazing. And this was only just the beginning!
Today's ride: 32 km (20 miles)
Total: 44,872 km (27,866 miles)
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