Riding the Maribyrnong River Path

Friday, April 22nd, 2005 at 05:28pm

Damien and I both took today off work in order for us to ride the Lilydale to Warburton Rail Trail but this plan was shelved as he needed to spend the day working on the lighting design for a show in a few weeks. As I have heaps of leave that I need to take I decided that I would go for a ride anyway and the next path around from the Moonee Ponds Creek is the path along the Maribyrnong River.

My travels unfolded as follows:

  • Train from Glen Waverley to Flinders Street and then to Jacana (on the Broadmeadows line). This took an hour and a half but it could have been done in twenty minutes less if I had caught an earlier train from Glen Waverley and changed to a Belgrave line train at Richmond that ran straight to Flinders Street rather than around the loop.
  • Rode along the Western Ring Road past the suburbs of Tullamarine, Airport West, Keilor Park and East Keilor to Brimbank Park. Initially I had planned to do a circuit of the park before heading down the river but I decided against it.
  • Negotiated the very washed out track that runs from the east end of the E.J. Whitten Bridge almost straight down the valley to the path next to the river.
  • The hill on the other side of the river to the Department of Defence Explosives Factory was a pain but from the top there is a very good view over the factory and beyond.
  • After this it was a pretty easy ride all the way along the river (crossing over once) until Footscray where I turned onto the path along Footscray Road (aka Docklands Hwy) that leads to Docklands itself.
  • Underneath Citylink I was required to wait for a load of containers to cross Footscray Road on the line to Appleton Dock. I’m kicking myself for not taking a photo as I had plenty of time…
  • After Docklands it was a pretty straightforward ride past Crown and Southbank. I crossed to Flinder Street but I continuted down past Federation Square, Birrarung Marr, Melbourne Park and the MCG to Richmond Station where I caught a train back.

I left Jacana at 11AM and arrived at Richmond at 3PM after covering just under 50 kilometers. All up it was a very easy ride.

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