Melbourne to Point Cook 30 miles

After two years away the call of the Australian open road was to much to ignore. With winter coming to the northern hemisphere and the heating in the house being on just a little too often I added up the pros and cons and decided the cons were non existent. Jump forward 2 months and I was sitting in the airport with a belly full of preflight nerves. Once through passport control and right on cue a wave of calm descended over me. The only stress for the next 23 hours would be which films to watch. First up the standard good mood film for all the family “Mary Poppins”. I had seen this so many times that I knew the words to not only the songs but the dialogue. Still it’s a classic. My take on it though is the title has always been incorrect. As much as Mary is an important character the film should be titled “How George Banks realises what’s important”. I guess that doesn’t quite look as good on a poster though. After that I got up to date in the Marvel world with Ant man and the Wasp. Another fine entrance in the Marvel catalogue. From Dubai I thought I would go a little deep and watched A Beautiful Mind with Russell Crowe. A couple of hours left on the flight and I put on a film I think I should have seen by now but never had gotten round to called Jerry McGuire. This was quality although the captain of the plane kept interrupting half way through to tell us about the weather in Melbourne and the turbulence we all knew was happening. With 20 minutes left the film was bouncing along nicely when we started our descent into Melbourne so it stopped playing and the screen went into pictures from the camera outside the plane. Come on Captain you can’t be serious. I’m trying to relax and you change Renée Zellweger getting it on with a view of the ground approaching way to fast. I closed my eyes and thought “show me the money”. Collecting a bicycle box from oversized baggage is always a bit of a worry, especially in Melbourne airport with it’s history of destroying my bicycle 3 years ago. When my box came through the curtain with a few holes and tears in the cardboard my stomach turned. Luckily once opened and set up it was all good to go. I didn’t quite cycle through customs control more pushed it and smiled. G’day, welcome to Australia. I knew my route from the airport to my host in Point Cook as I had worked it out beforehand but once outside the airport I just couldn’t find my way to the bike path that I knew was there somewhere. Every road looked like it was not suitable for bicycles so I reset my radars and headed off along the lesser looking of the roads and would pick up the cycle path a bit further away. This turned out to be a good idea as around 2 miles away I joined the Maribyrnong River trail. I checked my cycle trail map and saw this would lead perfectly to the western side of the city. From experience cycling directly through a main city centre is never the best idea so to hug the outside along a bike path would make sense. Once I hit the coastal path that would take me to Point Cook the wind really picked up. It’s never good when you know it would be quicker to get off and push but as a cyclist this isn’t the done thing so it’s head down and push through. Around 10 miles from my destination I was really starting to feel a bit disoriented as not much sleep and the strong headwind was putting a strain on me but I knew once there I would be able to freshen up, eat and sleep. Destination reached. I was welcomed in by Kara and her awesome, friendly dog Alan. It had been two years since we last met in Albury in my last visit. She had since taken a job in Melbourne and moved down closer to the city. So cool to meet up again and to be put up for the night while my body gets it’s bearings. Ah, Australia I have missed you.