More fitness information - Bike Riding

We are keen push bike riders. Our ride from home in Eltham to Melbourne (where the office is located) is about a 37 km ride each way. This keeps our levels of fitness right up there ! 

It is a magnificent ride along the Yarra river nearly all of the way in. There is almost no road riding required along the trip, This keeps are nice and clear of cars. 

We also have a train line running from Eltham to Melbourne. This allows us to catch the train part ways on the the days where our legs are failing ;-)

Above is a GPS trace of the ride from Melbourne city to home in Eltham. As the ride follows the Yarra river most of the way, it is relatively flat for most of the journey. The steep rise at the end is a hill climb near home.

A high level Google view of the ride. Eltham/home is top right. Melbourne city is bottom left.

Another view from Google. This is looking from the city North-East back to Eltham

Papua New Guinea tourist Visa arrived

Whilst you can get your Papua New Guinea visa once you arrive at Port Moresby airport, I have read it is quite a hassle due to long delays at Immigration services.

I sent off Andrew and my passports to the PNG consulate in Canberra (via express post for security) and the passports were returned three days later with the visa attached as per below. Not anywhere as exciting as some of the other visa's we have.. ie Ukraine, Indonesia, some old French ones etc :-)

Visa's cost $AUD35 each

Nice to have the Visa sorted. Just need to get Kina currency sorted out next week.

1000 Steps again today

Rainy day today for walking. Started later in the afternoon as we had things to do in the am.

Walked up and down 5 times....average 12 minutes up to top !

The picture above gives an idea of the weather. Rained pretty much all afternoon.
Quite enjoyable hiking in the rain.  Boots feel pretty good now !

Saw a pretty rare friend during the walk.

Lyrebirds are meant to be pretty shy. This is the 2nd time in a row hiking on the 1000 steps that we have seen them. Today they were real close to the track, close enough for some good shots...even in the rain.

 Legs are feeling pretty good now after about two months of intensive exercise... including weekend hiking, bike riding to town each day etc. After first few walks on 1000 steps early in piece, had pain in quads walking up/down stairs for next few days at work etc. Seem to be over this now so I think we are getting ready for walk !

Sweating up the Glasgow track

Walking the Glasgow track. This track runs straight up Mt Dandenong, starting at the corner of Glasgow Road and Sheffield Rd near Canterbury Road. Very deceiving.. from ground level at the start of the walk, it looks like a multi hour walk. Amazingly, it took just on 30 minutes from bottom to top. The view at the top is spectacular !

You can see the city of Melbourne in the distance.

Above is the Google view of the Glasgow track, using the 100 m track of a Garmin 60 CSX. The slight right detour at the top of the climb is a visit to the TV towers. The Garmin is a great, waterproof, high sensitivity unit for this sort of adventure activity !

The Elevation map of the Glasgow Track from the Garmin. Gives a good idea of the steepness of the rise/fall.
This image is generated from the Garmin mapsource application that comes with the GPS. This application downloads the track data direct from the GPS, in addition to generating the Google Earth pictures such as above. Makes it a cinch to generate these sorts of images.

Looking up the track. Good strengthening of you leg muscles. Also, plenty of 'rock hopping' practice...ie avoiding falling over ! 

Looking down the track. This picture was taken with the camera facing horizontal to highlight the decent angle.

The Kokoda Memorial track

Here is a picture of Andrew and I about to start walking the Kokoda memorial Track in Ferntree Gully, Melbourne. Also called the 1000 step walk, it is a great way of giving your quads a workout.This first main walk was designed to run our new boots in. Timeline was about 2 months before we were due to leave on the trip.

First walk up was about 15 minutes up, then 15 minutes down. on successive walks, we increased from one trip up/down, through to 4 trips. Later trips saw us get to the top of the steps (from steps bottom) in under 11 minutes.

There are numerous plaques on the Walk. Above is a picture of a bronze relief map of the Kokoda track area of Papua New Guinea.

The track has numerous plaques along the way, identifying key battle scenes along the Kokoda Track.

Note the height of One Tree Hill versus the highest point on the Kokoda Trail... the highest point being close to that of Mt Kosciuszko in Australia !


Google view of the walk.

Here is the elevation chart. We walked four times up and down on this day.