BurbleChaz

After a quick trip to the market to lay in essential picnic suppiles, we slapped down another $10.80 to expedite our journey to Lysterfield Lake Park. Our usual car park was full - the first decent weekend weather this year, coupled with a cycling competition, had brought the place close to parking capacity. We found another spot.

Once we'd put our bikes back together and started off towards the trails, the park felt empty. Most people never go more than a few hundred meters from their cars.

We climbed up past the lake, and then climbed some more to the top of the Middle Buckle Trail. We decended back down long, looping, occasionally technical single track for a few miles. The More Sensible Cyclist got bored with lifting her bike over the obstacles, and started riding them. She's cheerfully cleaning 6-inch logs, providing she doesn't have time to think about it. We need to do more work on her guts/brain ratio.

We rode back to the car, and discovered that we'd chosen the only space in the entire park with no shade. The interior of the car was well over 50 degrees. The planning and foresight of The Smart One included putting the picnic bag under cover, so the food was actually still chilled. Despite the vast numbers of loud obnoxious children, we found a good spot for our picnic, and ate the whole thing.

After lunch, The Photographer went and did her stuff, while I took my outrageously over-specified bike and pointed it up some hills. Once I'd scared myself enough with thoughts of venomous snakes, plummeting descents and heat exhaustion, I hammered over to the top of the trail we'd done together. I was swooping down the trail with more speed than sense when I saw a kangaroo standing on the trail. By the time I'd hauled my phone from my pocket and fired up the camera, it had bounded off into the forest. As I put my phone back into my pocket, another three hopped across the track. I waited for a few minutes, hoping to get a good shot. After a while, I started to have the slightly creepy feeling that, while I was failing to see kangaroos, the kangaroos were having no trouble seeing me. So I blundered on. I saw one more a few minutes later. I may have captured it on CCD, but most things were looking like kangaroo by this point.

Could be a kangaroo in there. Maybe.

In other news: Melbourne - World's Most Liveable City. Except Lagos. Seriously, if you live in the center of a city, should it take 56 minutes to find a place to sell you a beer on a Sunday?