Williamstown to Point Cook Ride, Sunday 3 January, 2005
By Heather Safstrom, Photos By Ludo S.
A group of eleven enthusiastic riders headed south at 11:20 am from Timeball Tower car park, Battery Rd, Williamstown (Melway 56-F10) on a blustery fine morning. The mixture of recumbents, and a couple of wedgies threaded along the Altona Coastal Park by Kororoit Creek infront of huge houses - marvelling that despite so much development, such an important area of wetland is being preserved and cherished. Having crossed Laverton Creek we then headed through the Cheetham Wetlands which has been recognized under the international Ramsar Convention as an area of great significance for migratory birds. Did you realise that there was a "Convention on Wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran, in 1971, as an intergovernmental treaty which provided a framework for national action and international cooperation for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. There are presently 144 Contracting Parties to the Convention, with 1401 wetland sites, totaling 122.8 million hectares, designated for inclusion in the Ramsar List of Wetlands of International Importance" (Ref: Ramsar website) -and this is one of them!
Now the plan had been to continue on to Point Cook - however - with a little creative leadership - the group headed into the Sanctuary Lakes estate -exploring every bike path and roadway possible through another estate of huge houses until we finally found a toilet block and bench for lunch by the manmade lake which had been crafted out of a salt marsh. This little diversion took such a long time - that the goal of reaching Point Cook was abandoned (a further 20 minute ride for another day) and we headed back for Williamstown by 6.30pm- still with a headwind in our faces. Most unfair as we'd had a headwind all the way to Sanctuary Lakes as well!
- Lessons learned from the trip:
- Jon won't leave his lunch on the kitchen bench at home again.
- George won't head off in the opposite direction to the group and need to use his mobile phone to relocate everyone (or perhaps the leader will ensure everyone knows a change of plan! ).
- Nobody will offer to "help" Nick when he moves over into the shrubbery to use his pee tube again.
- I'll be sure to keep away from Robert's shot of iced coffee with two short maccio's added to it. Perhaps he was wanting to keep awake after the trip extended to 50km's!
- As newcomers to the group - we learned what an interesting, caring group of people you all were and we'll come again for sure!
Thanks Robert and Jana for your boundless enthusiasm in organising these events on such a regular basis for riders of recumbents or wedgies alike.