Night Ride Report
by Nigel
This ride report was originally published in the November 2009 issue of the Motorcycle Tourers club magazine, ‘Chain Lube’.
The 2009 night ride went off like a frog in a sock on the sunny afternoon of 24th October. 24 bikers including 4 pillions experienced a ‘zone 1’ railway inspired theme, which as always was a closely guarded secret, even my poor housemate was getting hassled prior, but he had no idea where we were heading!
After Darren B finished showing his lovely new toy off we assembled & took off with a leisurely stroll through South & Port Melbourne, over the Bolte (no photo stop this year!) and made our first stop in Footscrayzy.
I was going through the history of the Bunbury Street railway tunnel and bridge when I was ditched (quite appropriately) by a rowing team passing behind me along the Maribyrnong River… needless to say my history lesson here endeth and Brett scuttled to the banks to get some all important (non-railway themed) photos for the newsletter. Said photographer landing ass over tit on the railway tracks in his pursuit of photographic excellence!
We had a look at this unique piece of Victoria’s railway history, munching on some chocolate to sustain us until our late dinner stop. We then headed off again and headed to the major surprise of the evening, being a guided tour of ‘Metrol’ in Collins Street.
On arrival some Tourers were ushered off the forecourt’s private property by an over-zealous security guard… unfortunately he wasn’t offering the valet service for Aprilias :-), we were then met by our Connex host & went up for our very own private guided tour of this fascinating area of Transport house.
We were fortunate to have had over an hour looking through the running of Metrol – the main train control centre for Connex (soon to be rebadged MTM). As well as many quirky stories & tales of trains, graffiti, the city loop and other happenings of our much loved (and sometimes loathed) metropolitan train system.
We departed for the rest of our ride, changing my route ad-hoc due to city traffic congestion, but we didn’t lose a single bike!. We meandered through docklands, then back onto citylink for some much needed radiator cooling, off again at Racecourse Road. We headed up past the Zoo, then stopping at our third railway inspired stop, a bridge over the now disused Inner Circle railway. This vital piece of railway history was the original main route from Flinders street to Clifton hill, until a further direct line was later built. This line had 3 stations, including a small branch line to Fitzroy railway station. The only remaining station of this line is the North Carlton Railway station, still standing in all its architectural splendour as a local community house. We followed the line to Clifton hill where we stopped for a much needed feed.
Because this place gives such small serves of food, at such exorbitant prices (not), I decided that it was so well received last year we give them another try at trying to increase the GVM of each motorcycle. If you haven’t eaten at Mosskito at Clifton Hill, its well worth the visit, great service, prices & the serves of food are enough to feed an entire African village for a week!
After a lengthy dinner and because I wasn’t feeling 100%, I decided to end the ride after dinner as it was also getting late & some pillions would have needed training wheels after consuming such large quantities of food. Unbeknown to me, the only Ooops! of the evening was Gary whose scooter decided to boycott any further travel that evening when departing to head home. Again I was blessed with superb weather yet again, and although shorter than previous night rides, it was long enough for some pillions to experience the sights of Melbourne. That was also the final ‘curtain call’ for my Tiger at an MMT event… priorities have changed and a house is more important. But how long I’ll be able to stay off 2 wheels is yet to be seen!!!!!
Ride Photos:
