Melbourne – just a bit more

Thursday 5th July

We headed down into Melbourne on Tram 11, disembarked at Spring / Bourke and Sue called into  Pharmacy to get a prescription filled.  Oh dear – one has expired.  That’s OK we are told – there is a Doctor’s Surgery just round the corner.  Sue got to see a Doc and when he saw the expired Prescription was from Longford and then saw our Doctors name he was beside himself.  “I know her, she is the best GP in the world” he said.  This Doctor was from Syria and apparently during his early days in Australia our GP had helped him get settled.  So all was OK and Sue now has her complete set of drugs.

Next we started down Bourke Street but decided it was a long way down so why didn’t we hop on a tram.  We did and were immediately offered seats by two young ladies.  We declined as we were only going a couple of stops and there was a lot of smiling as we all settled it amicably.  Looking old has it’s advantages.  10 years ago we were offered seats on a Sydney bus.  Crikey, that was our first experience of being seen as elderly and we were young then !!

After meeting up with our Financial Advisor, who has been very effective but only a voice on the phone up till now, we split up and I headed back up Nicholson Street once more to pick up a (hopefully) non-squeaking Brompton.

OK.  The mechanic tells me it isn’t squeaking but no specific problem had been found.  Everything that moves has been greased and re-greased and it was time to check it out.  So I rode the Capital City Trail again back to the junction with the Merri Creek Trail.

A bicycle counting post on the Capital City Trail.  The count for Thursday was already 900.

On the Merri I headed north and after a k or so began to recognise scenery I passed a couple of days ago.  That was good – going the right way!  The trail has quite a bit of steepish, short ups and downs as it runs through various storm water gullies and creeks.  At each dip I let the speed roll off until the bike was almost at a standstill and then engaged really low gears to stress the transmission as I pulled up the other side.  It would not squeak.

We came upon the Brunswick Velodrome – a bit classier than Longford’s ‘drome

Great infrastructure on the Merri – this is a very strong bridge

I went past my original joining spot and carried on up the trail eventually arriving at Coburg Lake, which was a surprise as I didn’t know it existed.  Here my sense of direction suffered a brain fart and I took off in completely the wrong direction to get back to the caravan park.  After climbing a reasonably steep and long hill and getting caught up in roadworks and arriving at an extremely busy Sydney Road next to the Ulan’s Bikie Gang’s heavily fenced club house, I decided to check Google Maps – yep – wrong way.  It was fun descending the hill previously climbed and heartening to arrive shortly after at a street name I knew – and knew it would cross tram route 11.  Meeting route 11 at Elizabeth Street I turned to climb the hill up to the park and found I was immediately in my new bottom gear crawling uphill into a very strong headwind while the effort created bouncing seat springs and suspension – but still there was no squeaking. Well, to be accurate, I may have been squeaking but the Brompton didn’t.

So, dare I say it?  Brompton is fixed?

Tomorrow we head out of Melbourne to Yarra Junction and the Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail.  I have my fingers crossed.

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But, before that I just have to comment on the new houses popping up everywhere around Coburg (and elsewhere).

I think they look like the lower walls are erected and then the builders go back to the yard, check what stuff they have available and bang it up along with other stuff their mates want to get rid of.  Sue tells me it is the modern style.