Today's adventure was a bike ride into the city. At the end of our street is Merri Creek which runs in a typically windy course into the Yarra river, just east of the city. Along this path runs a bike track. This we followed most of the way before turning off onto a more tricky section that followed an old tram track though Edinburgh garden and through some backstreets into Melbourne City. It took us close to 2 hours before we finally chained the bikes up, just at the head of China town. A suitable purveyor of Chinese comestibles was quickly found - everyone was starving by then. Amanda took us to an excellent shop for coffee and the most exquisite cakey treats. She had been here on her recent trip with Emma. J has been searching feverishly for a yoyo which he managed to get from a small toy shop in a nearby arcade. Amanda led us to a bookstore in the basement of a white building. It was actually full of customers which is amazing in this post-Amazon era. We whiled away quite a bit of time, each finding interesting volumes of humour or historical letters that were hurriedly brought back like treasure to share with the others. The simple pleasure of a bookstore - something that has almost been forgotten about thanks to Google.

Before we knew it, it was time to head home. This leg of the journey went more quickly, largely because we knew were to go this time, but there were 8 tired legs by the time we got back. I explained to Claudie that we had probably spent over 3 hours in the saddle today and that's a long ride in anyone's estimation - something to be proud of.