Westies

Another day, another ride out west to try and find the route to Parramatta. This time, I managed to get lost going around Homebush Bay and ended up riding past Silverwater Prison. I don't know how I ended up there. I got home and had a look at the area on Google Maps and it took me five minutes to work out where I ended up. I was seriously off course. I really need to take a GPS with me. I am crap with directions.

Once I got back on course, I did manage to find the turn off to Parramatta. Like all good government efforts, it was well disguised. You actually had to ride past the sign that marked the route to Parramatta, and be a good 50 yards beyond it before you could read it. I would like to find the idiot responsible for that and beat some sense into him with his own sign post. The only way I found it was to stop every time a bike path crossed the main route and turn to the right (North) and see where it went. That meant a lot of riding up dead end routes, turning around and trying again.



Here is the sign in close up, as viewed from the bike path. No, it is not blurry because I took the photo from a distance - it is blurry because there is nothing intelligible written on it. I got right up close and personal with the sign and it made no difference. It is simply a blank sign.



Here is the view of the sign as you are zooming down the bike path. At this point, I was doing about 35km/h, and the sign is on the far right - almost, but not quite obscured by a huge concrete pylon. The dumb bastards should have actually put it next to the bike path, not 50 yards off to the right. Imagine if you were driving down say the Hume Highway and the sign marking the off ramp to Goulburn was actually 500 metres down the off ramp, and the only way to find it was to drive down the off ramp to see if you had driven off at the correct ramp. It seems that when road engineers get hooked up with a cycle project, they lose all common sense and rationality.



This is quite off topic, but it is the back of Terry Shields Toyota, which is a big time car dealer over here. Check out all the graffiti on that wall. Would you buy a used car from a man that can't be buggered to keep his premises spick and span?




This last photo is just of something plain odd. There I am, zipping along underneath the motorway when I spot this guy sitting in the grass off to the side with his shirt off. His clothes were neatly folded nearby (just out of shot). I have no idea why he stopped here like this - but I was so intrigued, I did a U turn and took a photo of him.



All in all, the ride was a bit of a screw up. I misjudged the temperature, and just about damn well froze as a result. I had to keep my tempo up to a ridiculous level to keep warm, which just about killed me. Next time, I am wearing my jacket. Getting lost also added a bit of distance, and of course once I took the turn off towards parramatta, the signs marking the bike path just died out entirely, and I never did find my way there. But I did see a bit of Harris Park (I think), so I am setup for next time.

44km covered in 1.5 hours. Not bad going for an old fart.