On Christmas morning we visited yet another a local church in our quest to find a spiritual home (and promptly decided that it would not be the one), came home, packed lunch, loaded our presents onto the new bike rack on the back of my car, and off we went, having decided to have a Christmas with a difference - we were going to do the Noojee Rail Trail! Fairly flat, and only about 4kms, so I would be able to cope without needing an ambulance.
We quickly discovered (after a few bends in the road, and me making sure that my eyes were not playing tricks on me when I was sure I saw the bikes changing position on the back of the car!!) that our new bike rack had a bit of a flaw in that the weight of the bikes caused the whole bike rack to swivel on the tow bar! So when I turned this way, the bikes went that way, and when I turned that way - well the bikes did their own thing :-). I did not really fancy having our new bikes and tow bar land on the road behind us while we were doing 80km/h, so there we were in the middle of nowhere, next to the road doing the Australian wave while trying to figure out a way to secure the bike rack.
For the uninformed.... the Australian wave = waving your hand up and down and side to side, sometimes frantically, in front of your face to try and keep 3 flies from going into your mouth and 7 from going up your nose - not a pleasant experience! Mmm - just imagine eating your 'lekker braaivleis' out in the countryside somewhere - with about 10 flies trying to get you to eat fly flavoured chops, salad, broodjie, you name it :-). You would then be doing the Australian wave :-).
So Australian wave and all Geoff eventually secured the bike rack to the spare wheel by attaching the wheels of the bikes on the one side to the spare wheel on the same side with the cable we bought to lock the bikes. And 10 minutes later we were on the road again.
We eventually arrived in Noojee, and realised that the map we downloaded from the internet was not at all detailed enough, so we drove up and down in Noojee for a while (and almost decided to give up and go find another place to ride our bikes) before we eventually found the start of the trail. (We have now since bought a book on the rail trails - worth spending the money.)
And off we went...
The trail starts just off the main road that runs through Noojee to the next little (emphasis on little) town, and heads into the 'woods' to the Noojee Trestle Bridge seen below.
Rail trails are old railway tracks that were covered up or converted to be used as walk/bike trails. Hence the name rail trail.
One can turn off onto a dirt road before you get to Noojee, and then you can drive up to the Noojee Trestle Bridge and have a picnic there, or just go for a short walk.
After we had lunch (just after crossing the bridge), we headed back to the car, and then decided to drive in to see the bridge from the picnic area. Wow, quite a picture.
On our way home we stopped to take some photos of the views in the area, and Geoff saw this plaque on the ground.
It is really stunning out there, a camera does not do it justice.
And that was the Noojee Trail, but Christmas was not over yet.
We spent the evening with some friends from church who invited us for 'tea' - not wanting us to spend our first Christmas in Aus on our own. What a great family. We had a lovely evening, ate way too much, stayed way too late, and got home quite exhausted. :-)
So our Christmas Day with a difference was the first of many - not sure what we will get up to this year. Guess you will have to watch this space. For quite a while that is. :-)
Next up... between Christmas and New Years ..
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