Family Bike Ride

Last Sunday, we went for a family bike ride. It sounds like an easy kind of thing, but with a 1 year old and a 3 year old actually getting out of the house is an accomplishment at times! So with helmets, jackets and layers of clothing on and tears averted after Ellie really wanted to ride her own bike, and despite having never been outside on her bike was convinced she could keep up and ride as far as she wanted, we loaded the littles into the baby seats and got outside... phew.


This was Jamie's first real trip on a bike, as although he has sat on the seat and been wheeled along (and once on a big trip in the Ergo - shh, we are responsible parents really), he proved himself to be quite the cyclist, loving the wind in his face, and especially the sound of the bell!

There's a canal not far from where we live, and we rode along it. We saw the fishermen fishing, we saw children playing, we saw other people out for rides on their bikes, we rode through some vegie patches. We rode down through the Dong Jiao Guest House gardens - this is a hotel environment for dignitaries and guests of the Government, and it is stunning. The gardens are maintained beautifully, there is a beautiful lake and with spring coming, the emerging new growth is delightful. It was interesting, or maybe what we are sadly getting used to, to see that the top 15cm is perfectly groomed, but then go any deeper and there's refuse and sodden water.


We didn't ride for very long, but we were correct in preventing Ellie from riding her own bike, because she said once "I'm feeling tired" and then boom, I felt my bike lurch to the side and Ellie had fallen asleep in the bike seat. Her dead weight on the back of the bike actually made it really tricky to keep the bike steady, so instead of continuing our cycle in the lovely crisp fresh air we headed to Face - a cocktail lounge bar in the residential section of the Dong Jiao Guest House grounds.


This turned out to be a very good choice, because it has some fantastic day beds to lounge on... So we managed to get the heavy 3 year old off the bike and into this bar and onto an elaborately decorated bed, where she slept soundly for about 45 mins while Mike and I enjoyed a cocktail each, and Jamie climbed around, and found it particularly amusing to sit on a little table in the middle of the bed. It was very funny really and quite fortuitous.

Afterwards we rode home, through a tip, which depressed Ellie to see an abandoned Winnie the Pooh, and over a bridge with the most stunning sunset. It surprises us no end that where we live in the heart of 'Expatville' is so close to abject poverty, and on our regular days we don't see it, and it only takes us on a short ride to cross over into that void.

For the record we rode less than 10km on this trip!