Sea, sand and sunburn
Feb. 7th, 2010 03:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccOriginally we'd planned to do the final stages of the Oxfam trail this weekend, but given the final stages are 20.4km of long and boring followed by 7km of strenuous excitement Karena thought that maybe giving her knees a week's break would be a better plan. So we opted for distance over excitement and upped the ante by 10% to roughly 30km.
Bright and early again we gathered at Station Pier in Port Melbourne. Or that was the initial plan. There turned out to be a cruise ship in dock and lots of resulting traffic, so we met a little bit further down the road before heading south-east towards St Kilda. Port Melbourne is surprisingly busy at 7am, even without cruise ships - we passed boot camp people training hard (on a Saturday!! These people are nuts), huge packs of cyclists heading out along the Esplanade to Beach Rd and of course stacks of people jogging, walking dogs or just heading off for breakfast. The morning was overcast and cool - perfect walking weather, although we'd all brought extra water along just in case.
Walking into Catani Gardens in St Kilda a group of people camping out in sleeping bags caught our eye - fine last night, but not so great during the downpours we had mid-week I'd be guessing. St Kilda is an 'edgy' suburb - it used to be the seedy part of town, but real estate prices have pushed a lot of the edginess further south, to the cheaper rental areas. A lot, but not all, of course. Still, it's better now than in the cheap heroin years in the late 90s. A lot fewer visible syringes for starters.
Heading towards the St Kilda marina the smell of bacon and eggs drove all of us nuts. I hadn't actually eaten - wasn't organised enough, or hungry at 6am - so this was purely unnecessary torture. We sped up a bit to get past the backpacker vans lining the carpark, and their breakfast smells. The one cafe directly on our route was (probably fortunately for us) closed when we passed it.
Crossing the canal into Elwood we noticed the Spirit of Tasmania coming in fast. That ship seriously moves - although granted the water was pretty calm and flat at that stage. Still, it crossed our line of sight and headed in to dock at Port Melbourne remarkably quickly. Another cruise ship was also coming into the bay, making this one of the busiest weekends in Port Melbourne in a while.
Elwood changed into Brighton, which was mostly noticeable when we passed the extremely busy Brighton Sea Baths (and gymnasium) and some seriously pricey real estate. We passed the time debating which of several flats would be better value, and found ourselves coming up to the Brighton Bathing Boxes, which are of course the most expensive real estate you can buy in inner Melbourne. Most recently one at Portsea went for more than my house is worth, which is impressive for something bathroom sized. Even with location, that's a lot per square metre. They've very pretty though!
Rounding the headland and walking on the bike track on Beach Rd for a bit I found myself getting distracted by the huge numbers of cycling groups. We get one or two groups of 15 or more, but here there were massive packs (some were at least 30 strong) of cyclists and there were at least 10 of them. On top of that you also had the recreational cyclists - the packs were definitely not recreational, they were racing - who were the ones we were sharing the path with. I'd heard that the council had blocked off one lane of Beach Rd for cyclist use only on Sundays, and looking at the size and number of the Saturday packs I could see why.
We finally made it to the Sandringham yacht club, our starting point from several weeks ago and roughly half way on our journey. The yacht club had been doing it's mirage thing again, apparently receding into the distance, but it finally decided to slow down enough for us to catch it and pass on by. We stopped at a picnic site overlooking the wreck of the Cerebus and had some lunch. Unsurprisingly I was starving by this stage. I was also having trouble getting my arse in gear to keep moving, probably from a combination of not having eaten and being still tired from the week. Unhelpful really.
Fortunately the stop and the food (dried fruit, jelly snakes and a cheese and vegemite roll) cheered me up again and we were able to head off again on the second part of our walk without too much drama. By this time the wind had started picking up and the bay had become appropriately rougher. There were very few swimmers to be seen, but we started passing more kite surfers and wind surfers hauling their gear out of cars. The sail club training finished up while we were walking towards them and the boats started heading back into the beach, making for some interesting moments as people avoided crashing into each other, some more successfully than others. Finding the coastal path again we found ourselves in the midst of a lot of birdlife all of a sudden - a whole group of wagtails, Pacific gulls, and of course seagulls everywhere. A rustle in the bushes and both Priscilla and I spotted a rat - we're hoping it was a native species, but the odds are low on that! "Oh well, the snakes have got to have something to eat I suppose."
Down along the bike path to Black Rock, and Priscilla nearly caused a minor accident when her hat blew off and she rushed over to grab it, causing a small child to brake very hard on their bike. All were fortunately safe, although the look the child gave Priscilla was a beautiful combination of "what the hell lady?!" and "ohmygod I nearly crashed!" I don't think he was expecting someone to suddenly dash out in front of him like that.
We rejoined the dirt coastal trail again, and rounded the head at Beaumaris, debating whether to join the beachside path below. A huge gust of sand-bearing wind decided that, and we stuck to the less sandblasted path on the cliffs instead. Less sandblasted, but unfortunately still with enough gusts of gritty wind to be annoying. We stopped for a brief rest.
"I recognise that pier!" Up in the distance was the Mordialloc pier, close to our final destination. It was a long way off. The sun was now out and the day had become quite fine. I, on the other hand, was starting to wilt badly. We kept going, with me falling behind, catching up, falling behind, catching up. At this point the land was doing weird stuff, which was a direct result of the bay we were walking around. It looked like we were walking parallel to our final destination, which was across the water. I started wondering if it would be quicker to swim across, but decided probably not given the wind. More swimmers started appearing, including one amusing woman who was swimming on the spot due to the wind and current. Heh. You get your amusement where you can! Back into the shaded bushy bits, on to the bike trail, around a corner and the pier had magically gotten bigger. Thank God.
We trudged on, reaching Mordialloc finally. Mordialloc was in party mode, with people out lunching on pub terraces, entire families playing on the foreshore and a large group of people setting up for an afternoon concert. I've no idea what that was in aid of.
By this time I was consistently about 5 metres behind Priscilla and 10 behind Karena. As we were finishing up at Karena's place I was hoping they didn't get too far ahead, while simultaneously hoping that the next street was hers (I'd never been to her house before). Finally, it was and we all crashed in her back garden while Buster the kitten went nuts around us.
After two hours we started moving again back to Port Melbourne to pick up our cars (and meet Dean in my case). All of us were actually OK - tired, but we could probably have kept going, which is reassuring. I don't appear to have any blisters (not that I've checked under the tape yet!) but I missed a few places with sunscreen, all of which are bright red. I also had windburn last night but fortunately that's now faded! Port Melbourne was jumping, what with two cruise ships and people getting ready to board the Spirit of Tasmania, which had somehow parked neatly in behind the original cruise ship. Now I really want to see how they reverse park it, I'll have to find out when the next cruise ship is due.
Our next walk is going to be a night one, which will be interesting. If we make it back alive I'll write about it.
Route taken is here, although for obvious reasons I haven't taken it to Karena's house but stopped mid-way along the Nepean!
Bright and early again we gathered at Station Pier in Port Melbourne. Or that was the initial plan. There turned out to be a cruise ship in dock and lots of resulting traffic, so we met a little bit further down the road before heading south-east towards St Kilda. Port Melbourne is surprisingly busy at 7am, even without cruise ships - we passed boot camp people training hard (on a Saturday!! These people are nuts), huge packs of cyclists heading out along the Esplanade to Beach Rd and of course stacks of people jogging, walking dogs or just heading off for breakfast. The morning was overcast and cool - perfect walking weather, although we'd all brought extra water along just in case.
Walking into Catani Gardens in St Kilda a group of people camping out in sleeping bags caught our eye - fine last night, but not so great during the downpours we had mid-week I'd be guessing. St Kilda is an 'edgy' suburb - it used to be the seedy part of town, but real estate prices have pushed a lot of the edginess further south, to the cheaper rental areas. A lot, but not all, of course. Still, it's better now than in the cheap heroin years in the late 90s. A lot fewer visible syringes for starters.
Heading towards the St Kilda marina the smell of bacon and eggs drove all of us nuts. I hadn't actually eaten - wasn't organised enough, or hungry at 6am - so this was purely unnecessary torture. We sped up a bit to get past the backpacker vans lining the carpark, and their breakfast smells. The one cafe directly on our route was (probably fortunately for us) closed when we passed it.
Crossing the canal into Elwood we noticed the Spirit of Tasmania coming in fast. That ship seriously moves - although granted the water was pretty calm and flat at that stage. Still, it crossed our line of sight and headed in to dock at Port Melbourne remarkably quickly. Another cruise ship was also coming into the bay, making this one of the busiest weekends in Port Melbourne in a while.
Elwood changed into Brighton, which was mostly noticeable when we passed the extremely busy Brighton Sea Baths (and gymnasium) and some seriously pricey real estate. We passed the time debating which of several flats would be better value, and found ourselves coming up to the Brighton Bathing Boxes, which are of course the most expensive real estate you can buy in inner Melbourne. Most recently one at Portsea went for more than my house is worth, which is impressive for something bathroom sized. Even with location, that's a lot per square metre. They've very pretty though!
Rounding the headland and walking on the bike track on Beach Rd for a bit I found myself getting distracted by the huge numbers of cycling groups. We get one or two groups of 15 or more, but here there were massive packs (some were at least 30 strong) of cyclists and there were at least 10 of them. On top of that you also had the recreational cyclists - the packs were definitely not recreational, they were racing - who were the ones we were sharing the path with. I'd heard that the council had blocked off one lane of Beach Rd for cyclist use only on Sundays, and looking at the size and number of the Saturday packs I could see why.
We finally made it to the Sandringham yacht club, our starting point from several weeks ago and roughly half way on our journey. The yacht club had been doing it's mirage thing again, apparently receding into the distance, but it finally decided to slow down enough for us to catch it and pass on by. We stopped at a picnic site overlooking the wreck of the Cerebus and had some lunch. Unsurprisingly I was starving by this stage. I was also having trouble getting my arse in gear to keep moving, probably from a combination of not having eaten and being still tired from the week. Unhelpful really.
Fortunately the stop and the food (dried fruit, jelly snakes and a cheese and vegemite roll) cheered me up again and we were able to head off again on the second part of our walk without too much drama. By this time the wind had started picking up and the bay had become appropriately rougher. There were very few swimmers to be seen, but we started passing more kite surfers and wind surfers hauling their gear out of cars. The sail club training finished up while we were walking towards them and the boats started heading back into the beach, making for some interesting moments as people avoided crashing into each other, some more successfully than others. Finding the coastal path again we found ourselves in the midst of a lot of birdlife all of a sudden - a whole group of wagtails, Pacific gulls, and of course seagulls everywhere. A rustle in the bushes and both Priscilla and I spotted a rat - we're hoping it was a native species, but the odds are low on that! "Oh well, the snakes have got to have something to eat I suppose."
Down along the bike path to Black Rock, and Priscilla nearly caused a minor accident when her hat blew off and she rushed over to grab it, causing a small child to brake very hard on their bike. All were fortunately safe, although the look the child gave Priscilla was a beautiful combination of "what the hell lady?!" and "ohmygod I nearly crashed!" I don't think he was expecting someone to suddenly dash out in front of him like that.
We rejoined the dirt coastal trail again, and rounded the head at Beaumaris, debating whether to join the beachside path below. A huge gust of sand-bearing wind decided that, and we stuck to the less sandblasted path on the cliffs instead. Less sandblasted, but unfortunately still with enough gusts of gritty wind to be annoying. We stopped for a brief rest.
"I recognise that pier!" Up in the distance was the Mordialloc pier, close to our final destination. It was a long way off. The sun was now out and the day had become quite fine. I, on the other hand, was starting to wilt badly. We kept going, with me falling behind, catching up, falling behind, catching up. At this point the land was doing weird stuff, which was a direct result of the bay we were walking around. It looked like we were walking parallel to our final destination, which was across the water. I started wondering if it would be quicker to swim across, but decided probably not given the wind. More swimmers started appearing, including one amusing woman who was swimming on the spot due to the wind and current. Heh. You get your amusement where you can! Back into the shaded bushy bits, on to the bike trail, around a corner and the pier had magically gotten bigger. Thank God.
We trudged on, reaching Mordialloc finally. Mordialloc was in party mode, with people out lunching on pub terraces, entire families playing on the foreshore and a large group of people setting up for an afternoon concert. I've no idea what that was in aid of.
By this time I was consistently about 5 metres behind Priscilla and 10 behind Karena. As we were finishing up at Karena's place I was hoping they didn't get too far ahead, while simultaneously hoping that the next street was hers (I'd never been to her house before). Finally, it was and we all crashed in her back garden while Buster the kitten went nuts around us.
After two hours we started moving again back to Port Melbourne to pick up our cars (and meet Dean in my case). All of us were actually OK - tired, but we could probably have kept going, which is reassuring. I don't appear to have any blisters (not that I've checked under the tape yet!) but I missed a few places with sunscreen, all of which are bright red. I also had windburn last night but fortunately that's now faded! Port Melbourne was jumping, what with two cruise ships and people getting ready to board the Spirit of Tasmania, which had somehow parked neatly in behind the original cruise ship. Now I really want to see how they reverse park it, I'll have to find out when the next cruise ship is due.
Our next walk is going to be a night one, which will be interesting. If we make it back alive I'll write about it.
Route taken is here, although for obvious reasons I haven't taken it to Karena's house but stopped mid-way along the Nepean!
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no subject
Date: 2010-02-07 07:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-02-09 09:57 pm (UTC)After my horribly bad sunburn on Australia Day, I have learned the following: Moisturise. You won't peel very much if you do and it will make the pain go away.