Enjoying the trip to work
There’s just too much on this week, so I decided I needed a treat on the way to work.
12 minutes from my house is this:
I'm "forced" to take this path off Winterbourne Road most mornings...
Further down the creek near Salisbury Shopping Centre
I can now ride all the way to the coastal mangroves if I wish, with only a 600 metre detour around a bit of private land. There are lots of roads to cross of course, but since I am following the Little Para River trails I get to ride under all of them! Unlike two friends who took their kayaks from the Old Spot Hotel down to Highway One in the recent rains; they had to portage over some bridges because the water was so high!
Apparently you can take a kayak through there!
At Highway One there is some twisting and turning around a couple of back streets to get onto the road if you don’t want to jump the guard rails, or you can ride under the road, and carry on down the creek. [Update 2022: The path under Highway One is often under water after rain. You can usually walk under the road by climbing onto the higher area to the north of the path. Note that if you enter from the east end, the water will get deeper by the western end by several inches.] Getting to the permanently wet land used to involve dirt tracks and jumping a couple of gates, but now the new Dry Creek bike path goes pretty close.
This path joins Dry Creek and leads back up to Highway One (further south) It also shows why I’ll never buy a house at Mawson Lakes. This is high tide at Highway One (by Globe Derby Park). The nearest mangroves are only back 50 metres or so, and it’s only a few hundred metres into Mawson Lakes!
Highway One crossing Dry Creek at Globe Derby Park
[Note 2022: The underpass here is often underwater after rain. At Dec 2022, Salisbury Council seems to be building a path to enable crossing at the lights and then going back down to the path.]
Joining Highway One at Globe Derby Park is more noisy than dangerous, and the road verge is quite wide. I took the Port Expressway… another half kilometre with a wide verge and at Kidman Road turned off onto the swamp track which comes out at Magazine Road. There is no car access to Magazine Road, but there is a gate for bikes.
The wetlands on the Expressway. Six bridges, not in very good repair.
This brings us into heavy transport territory, but the trucks are much more accommodating than many cars. I take Cormack Road to Johansen Road, loop around to Grand Junction Road, and cross the drain off Gallipoli Drive to take the quieter ride down Naweena Road to Regency Road.
Janice Jensen Reserve runs between Regency Road and Pym Street
The Janice Jensen Reserve takes me off the road to Pym Street and Harrison Road is a quiet ride to Torrens Road. There, for push bikes, there is a clear run to Port Road, a little bit of footpath across to George Street Hindmarsh and I’m down Holden Street behind the soccer stadium and onto the Linear Park: turn right for the beach and left for Gorge Road and the beginning of the Mawson Trail.
Since I had to go to work, it was a right turn, and then left across the new Torrens Bridge behind the Brickworks and straight down Jervois, Clifford, and eventually, Bagot Avenue, and I’m there.
The stats: A sprint from home with lucky breaks at the lights takes me 1 hour 25 minutes riding time, if I go the shortest route. Today, with all the extra lolloping around the creek route—1 hour 38 minutes riding time for the 40km. Why would you not do this?
