Racing The Train

And A Stuck Truck

I walk from our house in Belair to Pinera Railway station: it's so close that it's not worth riding the bike. I wait on the Pinera station platform until the train lurches into motion and then I launch myself up the ramp, fidget and wriggle while I wait for a break in the traffic to cross the road, and then off down Gloucester Ave pedaling as hard as I can. Fifteen minutes, 205m, and some slightly terrifying inclines later I am on the platform at Lynton, from whence I can cycle (or catch the train) wherever you need to go.

Whoever put a right angle bend at the bottom of a 20% slope was just plain mean.

The train arrives 3 minutes later after clattering the long way round from Pinera to Lynton, stopping at three stations, wandering along the sides of steep rocky gullies, loitering through tunnels, and nodding convivially at passing goods trains. We part ways here, the train taking a leisurely trip through the suburbs to the west, and me riding the Rugby St Bikeway through the pleasantly gentrified suburbs of inner Adelaide until I reach the parklands that surround the city. Not that I've ever raced the train all the way to town but if I did, I'm sure the bike would win.

It takes longer when I stop to take photos of the city.

Train racing aside, I'm itching to get out after several days of damp, miserable weather and I plan to meet Roger somewhere on the Outer Harbour line, ride with him down Adelaide's beach front, and catch the train home again. He has some shopping to do so I have a head start, not that I'm racing the train at all. Of course not.

I follow the grandly named Stuart River until it meets the Glenelg tram line, and then I follow the tram line for a bit before zipping through a few streets and up the Westside Bike Path. It's slow riding. The path is cluttered with kids on strider bikes, dogs with and without people, old ladies meandering erratically on walkers, and no-one paying attention to bicyclists ringing their bells. It's a good thing I'm not racing.

Lynton is the main on/off point for mountain bikers heading up to Belair National Park, so much so that in school holidays and weekends an extra carriage is added just for bikers.

"I'm catching the 11:18 train" texts Roger, which makes me realise I better pedal harder: no lollygagging around having drinks of water and taking rain jackets on and off, I have a train to meet! Off I go the wrong way down the river trail, and I have to double back through uncomfortable amounts of traffic to Bowden Station where I get suitably confused about which platform I should be on and how I could get there (clue: there's a ramp, not my brightest moment if the truth be told).

The train is due in ten minutes. I'm very chuffed, not that I was racing the train but I'm very happy to have beaten it to Bowden and I can brag about my awesome not-train-racing skills when join Roger in the carriage.

A short train ride and one very satisfying lunch later we are on the waterfront at Semaphore. I zoom along on my nice new bicycle, the warm(ish) sun and wind at my back, not taking any photos because I've ridden this way so many times before. That's not to say that there isn't entertainment along the way, of course. Down at the West Beach boat ramp an excavator busily fills dump trucks with sand which to be moved, load by laborious load, south to replenish the beach.

Wind and waves move the sand north. The northern beaches are reluctant to return the errant sand. There is constant debate about the best long term solution.

Whilst debate rages the excavators and the dump trucks provide an inefficient and costly short-term fix.

We watch the trucks for a while along with several small boys, their mothers, and a collection of elderly gentlemen who share the small boys' fascination with big machines. The trucks have to go under the raised driveway to the West Beach boat ramp via a dip in the sand and they barely fit. We all watch with bated breath as an unloaded truck barely makes it through, spinning its wheels and almost getting bogged.

No sooner is it clear than another fully loaded truck comes along and becomes quickly and confidently bogged under the bridge. The group of little boys and elderly gentlemen draw a collective breath of delighted dismay: the loaded truck rocks back and forth, swivels to and fro, spins its wheels, and gets more and more bogged.

Along cames the excavator, abandoning its truck-filling duties to rescue the truck, this being complicated by the truck being under the bridge. The excavator extends its bucket and pushes, the truck revs and inches forward. For every inch the truck moves, the excavator edges further under the bridge. Excitement shivers through the audience. Will the truck get free? Will the excavator get stuck instead? What will happen when the tide came in? The small boys cheer as, with a triumphant roar of engines, the truck pulls free and rumbles off to dump its load.

The excavator, to the dismay of several small boys and possibly some older gentlemen as well, extricates itself from under the bridge and ambles back to filling trucks. Trucks which still have to fit under the bridge, mind you, but we don't stop to watch the dance of stuck trucks and excavators fighting a losing battle against the relentless work of wind and water. Instead we keep on down the coast until we reached the end of the bike path, and then we put the bikes on the car and go home, exhausted from all the excitement.

Today's ride: 48 km (30 miles)
Total: 631 km (392 miles)

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