Category: Yarra River

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Riding on a car-free Yarra Boulevard

With thousands of lycra clad fittos (and some notsofittos), I twirled through a few laps of Yarra Boulevard on 12 March when Bicycle Victoria blocked it off to cars (the next “cyclovia” is on 28 May 2006: 4 km of Sydney Road in Brunswick for 6 hours). It is one of the world’s few events where the coffee is free but water costs. It was all good. There were free muffins, and an Oxfam stall where these wonderful bags made fruit juice packs were for sale. I wonder if everyone else was as ignorant as me about Yarra Boulevard. Did you know that by going to the river end of Gipps St, following the bridge across the Yarra, and continuing up the path straight ahead, you reach Yarra Boulevard, and can then ride along an undulating and winding riverside bushland boulevard which starts nowhere in particular, ends nowhere, and is seemingly only used by late model Mercedes? Continue reading “Riding on a car-free Yarra Boulevard”

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I went for a walk to Galatea Point

I took Miss K down to Galatea Point in Yarra Bend Park, just off Studley Park Road, a great little 20 minute walk you can drive to and be guaranteed a park (directions below). This is one of the beautiful views of the Yarra a great loop of which makes the Point feel like a promontory. Across the way is green lawn, and autumnal European trees (in the general vicinity of the Studley Park Boathouse). The combination of the bush and the park separated by the river is particularly pleasant, the best of both worlds, and I daydreamed of installing a kangaroo on the point, but have since confirmed my suspicion that kangaroos are excellent swimmers.

Along with nesting rainbow lorikeets, three eastern rosellas, and grey fantails, we saw, without even looking, one of the most splendid Australian birds, a flame robin, hopping around nonchalantly in front of us for as long as we cared to take in his scarlet beauty. My camera’s batteries had by then given out. Happily, I was able to borrow this photo from Julian Robinson of Flickr.
Continue reading “I went for a walk to Galatea Point”

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Breakfast at the Collingwood Children’s Farm

Long have I waited before posting about the Collingwood Children’s Farm. Meanwhile, a Farm Flickr group has been created. The first post about Abbotsford’s most precious and wonderful asset was supposed to be fittingly splendid. Well, it’s going to be mundane, just eggs and coffee. For the missing Abbotsford breakfastry is upon us, and in a glorious way that the sniffy author of The Breakfast Blog would probably loathe. His readers seem to think that Collingwood is a “Northern suburb” and Abbotsford rates not a review, while Collingwood rates only two, for Gluttony and Cafe Rosamond which latter I must confess I am now curious about.

The missing breakfastry is the Collingwood Children’s Farm Cafe, open Tuesday to Saturday 9.30 to 4.30 during school holidays and “Wednesday to Sunday otherwise”. Continue reading “Breakfast at the Collingwood Children’s Farm”