I took the now familiar route out to Homebush, and then tried to find my way to Parramatta. Along the way, I ran into a line marking gang. I could have zipped around the cars and gone on my way, but the paint spray was blowing across the road and it stunk. I didn't want to risk ending up covered in white line marking paint from head to foot, and I don't think the bike needs to have that speckled look about it.
The interesting thing is that the paint appeared to dry almost immediately. You can see here a very shiny white line, which is a big change from the almost non-existent markings that were there before. I think that since we are now in a new financial year, the Council is madly spending the maintenance budget.
Once I got to Homebush, I looped around to the north of the stadiums and things (going past the archery park of all places) and ended up on an excellent bike path that goes around the Newington Armoury. The armoury obviously used to move munitions around by a small train, as the track is still in place, and there are signs up where the track crosses the bike path.
I don't think there is much chance of being hit by a train, since the rails have a lot of rust on the surface. If the track is in use, the trains going past scrub the rust off and leave the rails nice and shiny. The Homebush tracks look like they have not seen the steel wheels of a train in years.
Still, I guess some shiny bummed bureaucrat figured that safety warning signs needed to be erected anyway. If they had any sense, they'd tell you to be careful when crossing the tracks, as the skinny tyres of a road bike could be thrown off by hitting the tracks at an angle. I wasn't thinking when I crossed the tracks, and reckoned that if it had been wet, I would have ended up on the bitumen.
The bike path is excellent - wide, flat and well surfaced and there was almost no one on it when I went around. There were only two annoying pedestrians - annoying because as I approached them, I rang my bell to warn them of my approach, and one moved one way and one went the other and they ran into each other and managed to block the entire path! Before I could collide with them, the more sensible one grabbed her partner and pulled her to their left, thus clearing the way.
I meandered this way and that and soon ended up on a bike path that goes along the side of the M4 motorway. Here is a photo of some awful road side sculpture - these things always remind me of sperm.
After a few kilometres, the path takes a new approach and goes under the motorway. It's kind of eery how it twists and turns beneath the concrete columns of the roadway above. This bit is great - smooth and flat, but it is bedeviled by roads that cross it at very regular intervals. You have to stop at each intersection, since the roads are terrible and it would be death to just zoom across without looking really carefully. That annoyed the hell out of me as I was zipping along at a nice 35km/h, and then I'd have to stop, cross and build up to cruising speed again, then stop and repeat the whole exercise.
At some point, the bike path comes out from under the motorway and it then follows a canal. I thought this sign was a classic - cycleway subject to flooding. I never expected to see one of these on a bike path.
The canal itself is a complete festering eyesore, and is a good reminder why no sane person would live in this area. It's a shithole. Graffiti over every flat surface, rubbish everywhere, empty factory units all over the place and a generally rundown, crappy atmosphere.
The canal a bit further along reminded me of T2 and the chase scene with the truck.
The graffiti along the canal is the usual mindless crud. I am at a loss to know why can of spray paint are still on sale. If you need to paint your car, you use a proper spray gun and compressor. It's not like they cost a bomb anymore - you can go to Bunnings and buy a cheap Chinese thing to paint for front gate for not much more than the cost of a few cans of paint. The bloody things should just be abolished.
It was not long after this that I came to the end of the line. It was a sudden stop - I was cycling on a good bike track, then it just petered out in a back suburban street. A big problem with this cycle path is the lack of signage - there are paths peeling off left and right every few hundred metres, but not a single sign to tell you where any of them lead.
When I got to the end, I spotted a path with some unusual "no entry" signs posted on it. I could not work out why you shouldn't be allowed to walk up this path to the structure that I have badly outlined in yellow.
So I went up and had a closer look. If you peek through the gap, you can just see one of those blue emergency phone signs - this thing leads into one of those breakdown bays on the side of the motorway. I guess you can abandon your car and walk down this path, or the NRMA can park in a side street and walk up to the bay.
On the way back, I just had to stop and take a photo of this small factory. It is the stinkiest thing that I have smelt in months. Years even. I don't know what they are doing in there, but it reeks. I tried to get around the front to see if there was a sign out the front, but that would have involved dismounting and carrying the bike over a kerb (twice) and I couldn't be that bothered.
Speaking of railways, this bike path crosses a railway as well. It's some kind of siding for a cement company. The rails looked shiny enough for me to suspect that it is used every now and then, but I felt there was no risk in just bolting across this line. That's two railways crossed in one day.
At one point, I was riding along with no idea as to where I was. Then I looked through the trees to my right and saw the M4 toll gates, and I knew exactly where I was. I didn't know where I was going, but at least I had a landmark that I could work with.
The final photo. This one was taken just outside of Homebush. It shows the cycle path disappearing into a spot where it appears that there is not much headroom under a bridge. As it turns out, the path drops away dramatically and there is enough room to get under the bridge, but there is not a lot to spare. If I sat up straight, my helmet probably would have collected the concrete undersurface of the bridge.
All up, it was a 40km ride, and it took me 1 hour and 50 minutes. A good 20 minutes of that was spent standing on the side of the road reading maps, or taking photos, but that dragged my average speed for the whole ride down to 23km/h, which is about what I normally average going to work (allowing for stop signs, traffic lights, traffic, pedestrians, dogs etc).
The big difference is that this ride is really flat. There was one small hill in Auburn, and whilst it was longish, it was not steep. I was happily cranking along at 40km/h in spots, only to have to come to a crashing halt when the bike path ended suddenly at an 8 lane highway. The weather was lovely - 21 degrees and almost no wind. Perfect.
After getting home and studying Google maps and some RTA maps, I think I now know how to get to Parramatta. Todays ride finished shortly after I saw a sign saying "Westmead - 4km". I now plan to make it to the other side of Parramatta.
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