Rottnest Island

About a year ago, Tiger Airways, a budget airline in Australia, had a 2-for-1 ticket sale on most flight routes. A lot of Aussies complain about Tiger being a poor airline, but Erik and I have flown Tiger on numerous occasions without problems and have been pleasantly surprised with their customer service. As long as you know what you are getting into (e.g. they will likely weigh your carry on bag so make sure it is under the baggage allowance or you will get charged A LOT), we feel it is a good budget option for flying. During that 2-for-1 sale, I purchased tickets for our trip to Sydney with my parents, tickets to Tasmania, and tickets to Perth. The Perth dates were really far out (9+ months), but they were SO cheap ($150 return per person including baggage) that we decided to book the tickets and hope that we could make it work with our commitments at the time, since we would be taking a few days off during the week for our trip. Erik visited Perth last year for a work conference, but this would be my first visit to Western Australia.

We arrived in Perth early on Thursday morning, picked up our rental car and headed south towards Fremantle, where we would catch the ferry to head to Rottnest Island. We had some time to kill before our ferry left, so we were able to spend some time walking around downtown "Freo", as it is commonly referred to by Australians. It seemed to have a laid back vibe (though that is what Western Australia is known for) and some really cool, eclectic shops.

On our way to Fremantle we stopped at Macca's (otherwise known to Americans as McDonald's, a place that we generally try to avoid) and found out they were featuring an American themed menu called "Tastes of America", including things like the "Smoky Texan Burger" and the "Banana Split Shake".

Found this gem at a Salvation Army (Salvos) store in Freo! Yes, it's a GW bobblehead.

Once it was time for our ferry to depart, we said goodbye to the mainland and were on our way to Rottnest. It is not cheap to get to Rottnest Island, so it is something that we debated back and forth about doing. After talking with friends who are from WA and people who have visited the area before, the general consensus was that we should go if the weather was nice. The weather was absolutely perfect. A tad on the cool side, perhaps, but not a cloud in the sky on that day. Once we arrived on the island, we checked into our accommodation for the night, a cabin that could sleep 6 people. It was basic but clean and a bit of a step up from camping, which we had done a lot of recently in New Zealand and on Fraser Island. We then went to rent bikes so that we could explore the island. There are no cars on Rottnest, so biking is the best way to get around. Armed with a map, we peddled around almost the entire island, about 20 kms or so, stopping along the way to enjoy beautiful views.

Our "cabin" for the night, along with our rental bikes!

Fortunately we did not see any venomous snakes.

You can see the mainland in the background of this picture.

Do you see the sunken machinery sticking out of the ocean? At this point I noticed that we have a piece of sand stuck in our camera, so you will see the dark dot on the rest of our pictures from WA, unfortunately!

Our first quokka sighting! Quokkas look like small kangaroos/wallabies.

Wadjemup Lighthouse

Quokkas are most definitely used to human interaction, though visitors are encouraged not to feed them.

Narrow Neck

We spent the evening hours lying on the beach as the sun went down, then headed into "town" to pick up some food for dinner.

Not a bad spot for a nap! A short walk from our cabin.

Bathurst Lighthouse

A standoff between a quokka and a peacock! 

Quokkas are literally everywhere. Stores have to put these up to prevent quokkas from coming inside.

The next morning we took one last leisurely bike ride before dropping off our bikes and catching the ferry back to the mainland. Our trip to "Rotto" (yes, there are abbreviations for everything here) was short, but we felt that it was just enough time to explore a breathtakingly beautiful place. Erik and I were in awe of the gorgeous ocean views, each one somehow even more impressive than the next. You will see a few more Indian Ocean pictures from our visit to WA, but none compare to the views of the ocean from our bike ride around Rottnest Island.

View of Perth CBD on our way back from Rotto

Comforts of Home

Erik just returned from a ten day trip to the States, where he was able to stock us up on some of our favorite U.S. products. Obviously we've had to make the transition to using different items while living abroad, but there are just a few things from home that we tend to miss on a daily basis. We were able to purchase just about everything online and had the items shipped to Erik's brother's house in Denver, where Erik could pack them into one of his allotted checked bags. A few items that made the trip across the Pacific Ocean were the TIDE to-go pen, Kenra mousse (my hair can't live without it and it's not sold here!), Aleve (there may be a comparable option in Oz, but all of the medicines have different names), aftershave for E (costs about 4 times as much here, ha!), lint rollers (I have yet to find a brand in Oz that actually works well!), and one of my favorite all time treats as a surprise from the hubby, Junior Mints! I also provided Erik with a wish list of liquor (he was allowed to bring 2.25 liters of booze back to Oz duty-free), and I actually have to thank my father-in-law for the liquor store run that he made on the last day of Erik's trip. :)

$51 for this purchase in the States. Would have cost about $110  in Oz.
Also haven't seen whipped cream vodka anywhere here...the Aussies don't know what they are missing!

If you are wondering why I did not make the trip to the U.S. with Erik, he was over there for a conference, and I actually had to work (in ordinary circumstances I'd be disappointed about this, but the fact that I've found enjoyable, consistent work is a blessing at this point!). He spent 5 days in Little Rock and then was able to fly to Denver to enjoy a weekend of skiing with his family before leaving the U.S. of A. Unfortunately his flight from Denver to L.A. ended up getting cancelled, requiring American Airlines to re-book him on a United flight, but the flight did not arrive early enough for him to make his flight from LAX to Melbourne. However, we are SO lucky to have a wonderful friend living in L.A., and she was able to provide Erik with a day's worth of entertainment while he was stuck on the West Coast.

In addition to Erik's arrival, we also welcomed a short-term "roommate" last week... a Canadian who is also a post-doctoral fellow at Victoria University. We thought it would be nice to help him get settled in Melbourne, as our hosts did for us when we first arrived. Andrew is a super friendly guy, so it's been an easy transition to have him around. At the moment he is searching for a place to stay a bit closer to the city, all while he gets used to the Aussie lingo, public transport, and the weather. When we talk to him it actually makes us realize how many adjustments we've made since arriving, and it seems like ages ago because we have learned so much since then!

For the most part we laid low this weekend and just enjoyed each other's company. We were thinking about heading to St. Kilda to watch the inaugural Ironman Melbourne race, as we knew a few people competing, but opted to have a lazy day around the house instead. On Saturday, Erik played in his first footy game, at which he received numerous compliments about how well he played. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but if not, I am working part-time with a footy team this season. During my initial meeting with the coach, Erik was running a workout on the field (he had driven me to the meeting...as this was when I was terrified to drive...I've come a long way with driving on the other side of the road!). The coach noticed him and asked if he had ever played footy before. I told him about Erik's background with American football and track, which led to the coach talking to Erik about joining the team. He decided he would give it a try, attended a few practices, and actually ended up enjoying himself. The team is quite a mix of guys, but I'd guess that Erik is one of the oldest. Even though he hasn't picked up all of the skills yet, he is one of more fit guys out on the field, and I think that helps improve his level of play. Even after yesterday's game, Erik still does not know all of the rules (nor do I!), but his teammates and coaches certainly think that he has the potential to be a decent footy player judging from comments made to me about his performance. From an athletic training standpoint, footy is different because you can actually run on the field while the game is still going on. So if I see a guy limping a bit, I can jog out and ask if he's okay or if he needs to come out and get his ankle taped (or strapped, as they say!), all while play is continuing. It is an extremely physical game, therefore, there are often many injuries, so I'm thinking that I'm going to be quite busy on Saturdays throughout the footy season.

I also crashed my bike AGAIN this week. It was minor compared to my first crash, but it definitely shook me up a bit. It had recently rained and I slipped on wet tram tracks while trying to cross them on my road bike. Fortunately my knee is okay (it has literally just recovered from the first crash), and the only major damage I sustained was a vicious bruise to the shin, a bit of a hip abrasion/bruise, and some neck pain. The response of on-lookers was totally different with this crash, and Erik was with me so that helped as well. The people behind us stopped and insisted on giving me band-aids and antiseptic spray and wanted to know if they could do anything else. Another driver moved Erik's bike out of the street, as he had stopped to help me. It was a complete 180 from when drivers were driving around me lying in the intersection a few months ago! Unfortunately, the crash occurred on a road where I have to bike to get pretty much anywhere, so the crash will not be easily forgotten. Erik and I have actually tried to work on some strategies about how best to handle biking on that road, because it's not easy with the traffic, the tram tracks, and some uneven seams in the concrete. I do know that I'll be writing a letter to the council about the dangers of biking on that specific road (Erik crashed in that exact same spot a few months ago, so it's not just me!), though I'm not sure that will elicit any response. In the meantime, perhaps this time I really have learned my lesson about staying away from anything metal while riding a bike!

A Foot in the Door

After returning from our wonderful long weekend along the Great Ocean Road, I, personally had a crazy week of WORK! That's right folks, I actually went to work. :) For those who do not know, I have only worked for about 5 weeks since arriving in August, when I was placed in temp job (which was fantastic, but not in my line of work) during the months of October and November. I have had several other job offers since then, but these jobs were not in my field and I was really holding out for the chance to find my ideal job in Oz. To be honest, I'm still not sure what the ideal job is for me here, seeing as my profession does not exist in this country. However, I am working hard to try to find my professional "niche" here in Melbourne so that I can work at a job that I feel passionate about.

On Monday, I went to 3 different jobs! The first was teaching a Sports Trainer course to a group called SEDA. Basically these students are in "grade 13" and they are working towards work placement in the health/fitness/sports/recreation field or they are trying to get into a university program. I was the head lecturer and I had 2 assistants to help me (there are 50 students in the class). I thoroughly enjoyed teaching even though the class seemed more interested in asking me questions about American than they did about the Sports Trainer course. One step at a time. :) Later that day, I went to job #2, at a local school that has an athlete development program. Promising Aussie athletes are given a free education at this school where many students spend half of their day training for their given sport(s) (sounds like my kind of school!). The "rehab coordinator" was on his honeymoon, so I was asked to fill in for him. I have to thank a former athlete, Kendall Fletcher, for helping me get an "in" at this school, because she dragged me over there to meet the head of their athlete development program. In addition, one of Erik's supervisors had written an email to someone at the school mentioning that my skills and background could be beneficial to their students. Basically I worked with injured athletes who had been seen by the physios (like physical therapists). I am unable to assess/diagnose injuries in Australia, which is not only strange but totally unfortunate because I could be much more of an asset to the school if that was the case. I'm in collaboration with a few people who are working to get athletic training recognized as a profession here, and hopefully that will happen before we leave this country! Later that evening, I stopped by footy practice of the team that I will be working part-time for this season. It is a small, local club that needed some extra help, and I'm excited to learn more about the game of footy and to get to know the guys who play for the club.

On Tuesday and Wednesday I was back at the school, and on Thursday I taught another SEDA course where this time, I was an assistant. Friday I also worked at the school, but left in the middle of the day to complete a brief orientation for job #5, as I will be teaching labs and tutorials for a Human Physiology course at the university where Erik works. I'm extremely excited about doing some college-level teaching, but also a bit nervous because I have a lot of material to review before starting to teach the first lab, which happens to be this Friday! On Saturday, I taught an all-day Sports First Aid course (similar to American Red Cross First Aid and CPR) to a small group of students. Again, I really enjoyed teaching the material and the students I had were fantastic. One of the students is actually currently enrolled in a Sports Therapy program, which seems to be the best career comparison to athletic training that I've found here, and apparently the director of the program is an ATC hailing from the United States! I'll be contacting him this week to see if there is any chance of doing some teaching or mentoring in their program.

Needless to say, I've got my foot in the door at a few potential workplaces now, which I am thrilled about! I'm hopeful that through one or more of these avenues I can find the ideal job for the remainder of our time abroad. I find it hilarious that I've gone from no jobs to several jobs all at once, but I think that these roles came just at the right time because I was certainly getting restless being unemployed!

Since I worked on Saturday, we were a bit limited as to what we could get into this weekend. Today we biked to the beach (this is bay beach we are talking about so no waves but beautiful refreshing water), which is about 10 miles or 30-ish minutes from our house (depending on which way the wind is blowing...we had a ferocious headwind on the way home and it took more like 50 minutes!). The weather here lately has been beautiful and rather warm, yesterday it reached 99 degrees F, but I find that it rarely feels hot because the humidity is so low. Anyway, we spent a pleasant afternoon relaxing in the sun at Williamstown Beach. I played around with Instagram on my iPhone to try to capture the beautiful day, the the picture really doesn't do the setting justice. Lots of work this week for me again, so this was a great way to finish the weekend and start the work week!

Crash

Wasn't I just blogging about how much I love being able to commute to work via the bike?! On Monday I was having a great start to the morning...beautiful day, good lift at the gym to start the week...then it all came crashing down on my ride to work. I was only about a half mile from our house where I was building up speed to get through the green light at an intersection when a cyclist came from the sidewalk (riding on the sidewalk is illegal, by the way) into the road in front of me. He was riding significantly slower than I was and he basically pulled right into the middle of the lane. So I frustratingly moved towards the outside of the lane, but not too far out because I am aware that there are tram tracks towards the outside and if you get stuck in a tram track on a bike you are in big trouble. What I was not so aware of was a big metal plate that I presume is screwed into the ground, but in looking at this picture it looks like it's out of place.

This is kind of a crazy intersection, and I was making a right turn (basically following the tram tracks) onto the left side of the road where you see the red light, but trying to keep to the left due to cars and trying not to be TOO far to the left because of the tram tracks. Are you confused yet? Anyway, all I remember is losing control of the bike and sliding along the pavement. My helmet has a good little dent in it and right pedal ripped my shoe and tore into the skin on my right foot pretty good. The worst part was that my knee got twisted into a horrible position I had excruciating knee pain, so much that I could not get up without assistance. So I was in the middle of the intersection screaming in pain and yelling for help and when the light turned green cars just started driving around me. Lovely. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a minute or two, a few very nice people came over to help me up and get me and my bike to the sidewalk. At that point I was running on pure adrenaline and thinking that I would just hop on my bike and ride to work. Ha! Then I started to get dizzy and feel sick to my stomach, so like the good athletic trainer that I am, I propped my feet up on my backpack while lying on the sidewalk. At this point the nicest man came to help me! He had been in the car in front of me, had seen the cyclist pull out in front of me (ummm, that cyclist just kept on biking after I crashed), and came back to check on me. Gave me some fluids and some stuff to clean up my cuts, put my bike in his boot (aka the trunk), and drove me home. Even called me later that day to check on me. There are still good people in this world. :)

So I spent Monday doing what I've told so many young athletes to do over the years...RICE. I was seriously worried about my ACL because I had so much instability, though I didn't have a massive amount of swelling like is usually (but not always), the case with an ACL tear. So on Tuesday I got in with a physiotherapist (similar to a physical therapist, but also similar to an athletic trainer), who was able to rule out an ACL injury but confirmed what I already knew...a grade 2 MCL sprain. Over the last 7 years of working in the high school setting I have had almost 10 athletes with grade 2 MCL sprains, and now I know exactly how they were feeling. At this point I'm almost a week post injury and while I can walk, I do not have full range of motion and I certainly don't have full strength. It will probably be about 4 to 6 weeks before I can resume normal activity, though I might be able to bike sooner once I'm mentally healed from this crash.

Erik and I had planned to do a long bike ride to Bells Beach this weekend, but that was out of the question. Saturday it rained all day anyway, so it was one of those days that you love to hang out and just do nothing. Today was spent similarly, though I did get out for a short walk around the neighborhood. Hopefully I'll be getting a bit better each day, though I really need someone to force me to do rehab because it's much easier to tell someone what exercises to do than to actually do them yourself. :)

Lessons learned from the crash:

1. Do not come remotely close to anything metal while on a bike.
2. Always wear a helmet (definitely saved me from a concussion and potentially worse head injuries).
3. Do not be afraid to lend a helping hand to someone who looks like they are in trouble. I am very thankful for the strangers who helped me and it definitely made me think about what I would do if I was on the "other side" looking at the person who was in the middle of the intersection. Don't be the person who keeps driving...be the person that offers assistance!

Life in the Slow Lane

On one of my early morning runs this week I came across literally hundreds of snails. It was the morning after a big rain and they were out in full force. I can remember seeing lots of slugs after rainstorms at home, but never snails. I was sort of fascinated by them and during my cool down walk, I decided to document a few of the little guys.

Unfortunately many of the snails moved too slow to survive the feet of other early morning joggers or commuters, and I saw quite a few smashed shells on my run. It's strange how when you move to a new place, you tend to take in your surroundings much more than you do in a familiar place. As I become more comfortable with life in Oz, I try to remember to notice the little things and not let things become so familiar that I don't appreciate them anymore.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Melbourne and Erik and I took advantage of the weather by heading on a long bike ride down the Eastern side of the Port Phillip Bay. We live on the West side of the bay, which is less developed and more industrial, so going over to the East involves seeing an entirely different part of the city. After we watched the Carrier Classic live in the morning (Go Heels!!), we took off on what turned out to be a 35 mile bike ride. Nearly the entire ride was completed on bike paths! Our destination was Brighton, because I had seen a picture somewhere of the Brighton Beach Boxes and wanted to see them in person.

58c is up for auction. Starting price between $160k and $180k. Anyone want to buy a Beach Box with me?!

Apparently these are used as shelters from the sun or places to change or even cook with a camping-type stove, and they are all individually owned, though I get the impression that friends and/or families often go in on them together. They sell for around $200,000 each. From the Brighton Bathing Box Association,  "The 82 Brighton bathing boxes are unique because of their uniform scale and proportion, building materials, sentry order alignment and a Planning Scheme Heritage Overlay on a beach owned by Bayside City Council. As simple structures, all retain classic Victorian architectural features with timber framing, weatherboards and corrugated iron roofs. They remain as they did over one hundred years ago, as licensed bathing boxes. No service amenities such as electricity or water are connected.  Licensees choose to differentiate their bathing boxes with minor structural, artistic and colour variations. When viewed together they turn the beachscape into a collective work of art that can change by the hour according to season, light and colours. ". They really make for cool beach decor just a few miles from the CBD. I found this picture on Wikipedia that captures the Beach Boxes with the city in the background. If you enlarge the pictures you can see a bride and groom having their picture taken on the beach. :)

Today we attended our first "Meetup" of Americans living in Melbourne. I joined this group a few weeks after we arrived here, but this was the first event that was close to our house. It was at an Ethiopian restaurant called Africa Town, and it was a small group of  friendly Americans (and a few of their Aussie partners, too). The food was very different, but good, especially the lentils! It was a great chance to meet people who have experienced similar frustrations and challenges of moving from the US to Oz, and I'm really glad that we went. The group is having a big picnic in a park for Thanksgiving, so we are thinking about attending that as our next "Meetup". Hmmm, do you think I can find Stovetop stuffing at the USA Foods store? I hope so!!

Rejection

In the last week, I have been rejected from two different teaching jobs. I was not even selected for an interview for either of these jobs, which was really disappointing. Granted, I do not have teaching certification (they call it 'registration' here), because I am waiting on my criminal background check from the FBI in the United States (which was mailed from Oz in early September and according to the FBI will still take another 3-4 weeks to process!), so I'm sure that is not helping matters. As I reflected on my situation I realized that I have NEVER been rejected from a job or school related application, so I'm sure that could be one reason why this is so hard for me. Salisbury was my number one choice for undergrad, UNC for grad school, Riverside for my first job, and Mt. Carmel for my second job. Looking back, it seems I have been very fortunate in the past, and clearly it will be different this time around. With my degrees, experience, and recommendations from former employers I expected to be a very competitive candidate for teaching jobs, but it seems that my American education and work experience might not interest the principals in Australia.

On the plus side, I'm really enjoying my temp job. The first week was a bit rough...getting used to working 9-5 and not being able to be outside while working made me realize why I enjoy being an athletic trainer. I'm working for a non-profit and was even invited to their Annual General Meeting last week, which made me feel like I'm really part of their "team". The people I work with are fantastic and they have created a variety of tasks for me to work on in order to prevent boredom, which is much appreciated! I am biking to work now as well and I'm learning to LOVE it. On warm days it's a little annoying to be sweating when I walk into the office but not sitting in traffic or waiting for the late tram makes up for it. 

Another exciting highlight of this week was buying tickets to head to Sydney for the weekend in a few weeks. This was a birthday surprise from Erik and I'm super excited to see the sights of Sydney!! It will be my first visit to an Aussie beach too, since we are a bit far from the coast here in Melbourne. We are also still debating our Christmas destination. We were pretty set on Thailand, but with the crazy flooding in Bangkok we have yet to pull the trigger to buy our tickets. Bali is an option but it's rainy season there, and we haven't ruled out just flying to one of Thailand's islands, most likely Koh Samui, and saving Bangkok for another time. Malaysia and Fiji are on our list as well, as we can get there relatively inexpensively from Oz.

The only picture I have to share this week is our bargain produce from a trip to the Footscray Market yesterday. A 10 lb bag of potatoes for $3, apples for $1.49/kg (that's $0.67/lb!), and zucchini for $0.99/kg ($0.45/lb!) were the highlights. $19.15 for all of these yummy fruits and veggies!

Of course the expense of other foods over here compensates for the wonderfully cheap produce. We were going to make a trip to the USA Foods store today, which is a least a 2 hour round trip adventure from our house, but the weather did not cooperate. Fortunately our parents have helped in that regard, as we received lots of goodies from the States last week including Crisco (finally proper cookie baking can commence!), Franks hot sauce & Ranch dressing packets (so that I can actually make a REAL buffalo chicken dip), Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips, peanut butter M&M's, and a bag of my favorite chocolates in miniature form. After learning how much they've paid to ship things over though, I think we'll sacrifice the long trip to the store or even pay to have things shipped from the store this time around. If we had known that shipping would be so expensive and that some of our favorite foods would be so hard to find, I think we would have put a LOT more food in our container. :)

The Beauty of the Bike

There is great value in owning a bike in Melbourne, and not just for off-road biking adventures. Without a car, we rely on bikes for getting most places. We discussed a few times recently that we might go down to the city to check out Costco. I'd heard that Costco stocks a few American-style foods, so I was excited to do some investigating. Erik looked at the map and decided that we could bike there. I was absolutely apprehensive at first, stating that it was all the way in the city and I wasn't sure that was a good idea. However, when I looked at the other option, public transport, and realized that it was rather inconvenient to get to Costco that way, I gave in. Turns out that there is a bike path almost the entire way from our house into the city! How cool is that?! I'm glad that Erik "won" this decision so that we were able to discover this great way to get into Melbourne. I'd estimate that we biked there in about 30 minutes, faster than we would have arrived by public transport! The bike path actually goes right by the dock where the container ships are being loaded and unloaded, which I thoroughly enjoyed watching. I didn't have the camera, so no pictures, but I will share a few pictures of a bike ride I took a few weeks ago on my way to Erik's work.

Part of the Maribyrnong River Trail that would be so much more attractive without the huge power lines!

This is right outside of Erik's building. Ugly power lines messing with this nice view too!

On our way back from the Costco trip (we did NOT end up joining, but are considering the option if we can find someone with a vehicle who might be willing to drive us there occasionally...I think it will be worth it just to get the bags of Mexican-blend cheese!), we made our first trip to the Footscray Market. At the market we picked up lots of yummy fresh fruits and veggies for pretty reasonable prices.

We got all of those goodies, plus 4 ears of sweet corn and another tomato that we ate for dinner last night, for less than $20. Not a bad deal, eh?

That sweet deal makes up for the $16 margarita that I had last week when we went out to try some Mexican food at Mamasita. :)  Liquor is not cheap in Oz, so I understand why drinks are more expensive, but I honestly never thought I'd pay $16 for a drink. I have to say that it was a fantastic margarita though, and I would definitely order it again! There was a line out the door when we arrived, but we decided to wait a bit for a table and we were glad we did. The best thing on their menu was the corn on the cob that is flavored like it's sold on the street in Mexico. It was heavenly! The guacamole was a hit too, even with Erik, who isn't the biggest guac-lover. It was a fun night out and I think that we will most certainly head back to Mamasita in the not-too-distant future. If you come visit us, maybe we'll take you there! ;)

Exploring

The weather has been relatively nice as of late, so Erik and I often go for a walk after dinner to "explore" the surroundings of our neighborhood. Last night we turned what we intended to be a 20 minute walk into almost a 2 hour walk, but it was enjoyable and we "discovered" a path that we had never been on before. One of the beauties of living close to the Maribyrnong River is that there is a trail along the length of the river, which is easy to get to from our house. I regularly run on the trail, but I have been wanting to bike the trail because I can go much farther with less work on the bike than I can with just my own two feet!

This afternoon I decided to head out on my fancy old pink Trek to discover what lies ahead on the trail. Near our house, the trail is mostly packed sand or dirt and it is super smooth biking, so much so that you *could* probably manage the trail with a road bike. I assumed that most of the trail would be this way. WRONG! After I got a few km (yes, trying to work in kilometers here instead of miles!) into the bike ride, the sand turned to gravel, which then turned to rocks and sticks and mud. Let's just say I was happy that Erik had taken me mountain biking through Patapsco a few times when we were living in the 'Ridge. Not that this compares to Patapsco in terms of difficultly, but being that I had ZERO idea what was up ahead of me I most certainly would have turned around after the first rough patch without that previous experience under my belt.

The view from my bike when the path was easy to ride!

Overall I really enjoyed the bike ride and I'm excited to bike the path again with Erik once his mountain bike gets here (on that note we have received confirmation that our things are going to be delivered next Wednesday, exactly 3 months to the day that they left our home in Elkridge!). When I was on my way back home, I did notice a sign that said the trail was closed!

I didn't see anyone else on the path while I was riding, but it was the middle of the afternoon on a Friday so presumably most people are at work during this time. I'm quite sure that people still ride it despite the sign, as evidence by the orange fencing that has been cut down next to the sign. :)

From the path there is a really cool view of Melbourne's Buddhist Temple:

And the most random thing, by far, that I saw on my bike ride today:

Surfing, anyone?

As of now we have no formal plans for the weekend, but hopefully we'll do some more exploring and I'll have more fun stuff to share soon!