In the finest traditions of Sesame Street, today’s tour is brought to you by the letters ‘E’, ‘T’ and ‘V’ and the number 710. The letters make up the initials of the train stations we visit along the way and 710 is the ticket vending machine number at our destination. None the wiser? Well if you are all sitting comfortably, I’ll begin.

ETV start time 1:30pm, straight to the train station, hop on the 1:40pm train to Enoggera and then indulge in the odd three or four hours of skating before catching the train back. Well that was the plan anyway. As is so often the case with these things, not everything went exactly according to the schedule.

By 1:30pm, almost everyone was assembled at the south side of the Goodwill Bridge, everyone that is except Bruce. As he was supposed to be joint tour leader, along with Michelle, his presence was desirable, particularly as Lyndal had requested a day off from tour leading duties on this skate. After a few minutes, Michelle’s phone rang and Bruce was told in no uncertain terms his attendance would be welcomed in the reasonably immediate future. A few more minutes later and Bruce appeared muttering about a general lack of parking spaces in the immediate vicinity and looking a little bit the worst for ware.

With everyone now assembled, we set off for the Southbank train station. As it is only round the corner we arrived just moments later. As we began to swarm around the ticket vending machine (number 206), we were approached by an unusually helpful Queensland Rail employee. At first it was not immediately obvious where he had come from but after a few seconds, we realised he had just stepped off the train parked on platform one. This just happened to be the train we needed to catch and unfortunately it was about to leave. As there were eleven of us waiting to get tickets and none of us were quite sure which buttons we needed to press, we had to inform the helpful man that we would be catching the next train. He hopped aboard and the train pulled away. A cursory glance at the Sunday timetable revealed that the next train should be along in half an hour or so. We purchased the rest of our tickets and sat down to wait for the train. Sure enough, about half an hour later the next train arrived. With skates off, we all jumped aboard and a mere 23 minutes later we had arrived at Enoggera, the ‘E’ element in ETV.

After walking across the bridge to the other side of the tracks, we all decamped on the narrow path which leads out of the station and put our skates back on. A quick skate down the path bought us out into the car park (212 parking spaces, non secure) where Lyndal was patiently waiting for us. She had decided to join us in a non-marshalling capacity and looked like she had been there a while.

With everyone assembled, we headed off through a few back streets before joining the bike path that follows alongside Kedron Brooke. Here, the pace picked up noticeably as Vaughan and Bruce moved up to the head of the skate. With each burst of speed, the pack began to spread out, necessitating regular pauses to allow regrouping. On one particular pause, which happened to be on the corner of a road joining two bike paths, Bruce decided a lie down was in order. Unfortunately, he seemed very reluctant to get up again once we were ready to depart which gave Anne the perfect excuse to start kicking him into action. Gentle toe taps seemed to be having very little impact (literally) and it was only the presence of on oncoming car that finally stirred Bruce from his horizontal resting position.

Back on the bike path and it wasn’t long before we came across a lone roller skater. She seemed pleased to see us, introduced herself as Alison and asked if Michelle was amongst our number. She had been waiting for us and was going to join us for the rest of the skate. One wavier later and we had an extra member of the tour on board. Same number of wheels just arranged slightly differently!

We carried on and the kilometres continued to click by. As we rounded yet another bend, we came across a group of children playing in a rather idyllic looking swimming hole, complete with shady trees, steep banks, rope swing and deep water. We stopped for a rest and Bruce seemed to be contemplating joining the children. He was particularly taken by the rope swing. Pepsi, used to feeding the enquiring minds of young children, spotted a Water Dragon sat on a nearby grass bank. No amount of pointing, directing and gesticulating was helping me spot it however. Without the aid of Pepsivision, this well camouflaged animal was remaining rather elusive. After one more exasperated bout of pointing, I finally spotted it,  as Pepsi homed in on an equally well hidden turtle. Just as the ‘it’s there, surly you must be able to see it’ dialog was about to reignite, it was time to go and we left the children to once more enjoy the peaceful spot alone.

A combination of the late start, hot sun and long distance was starting to take its toll and a lunch stop was calling with increasing urgency. Our destination was Toombul, the ‘T’ part of ETV. Small clues began to emerge that told us our destination was close. Signs on buildings included Toombul phone numbers, markers on the path said ‘Toombul this way’, that kind of thing. As we came to the end of yet another bike path, a main road loomed into view and there on the far side was our goal, the Toombul Centro shopping centre. With food and drinks so tantalisingly close, we of course made a beeline for the nearby skate park. Bruce, Lyndal and Paul had a quick play but all agreed that as skate parks go, this was not one of the better ones. With Michelle suggesting that food was now the number one priority, we crossed the road and headed for the Centro food court.

Lunch came down to a choice of McDonalds or Donut King (unless you had a particularly strong hankering for cinema popcorn). McDonalds seemed to win out in the food choice stakes and we settled down to enjoy the delights of the all new healthy burgers (same as the old burgers but with the fat content printed on the wrapper to make you feel guilty).

With food consumed, we headed back to the car park where there were now two options open to everyone. We could catch the train back from Toombul station or we could skate back to Enoggera. Although it had taken a couple of hours to get here, the general consensus was that the skate back would be much quicker. This was mainly based on the scientifically proven theory that the journey back is quicker because you know where you are going(?) Most people opted to skate back so we reversed our route and set off.

Amazingly, we did get back to Enoggera in about half the time it had taken us to get to Toombul; however I think the red, sweat covered faces may have been a more telling sign than a new found familiarity with the route.

The possibility of a maxi taxi back to Brisbane was mooted, but as we already had valid train tickets and the train was due to arrive in the next twenty minutes or so, we decided the time it would take for a taxi to arrive would be about the same as a brief wait on the platform. We all took our skates off and flopped down on the nearest convenient bench to wait. Before long the train arrived and we climbed aboard.

The ride home was punctuated by a lengthy wait at the Central station which left a time pressed Anne rather agitated. By the time we pulled into Southbank, she was ready to jump off the train and make a sprint for her car. The rest of us pulled our skates back on, and headed back to Lower River Terrace. The five thirty end time had now slipped closer to seven and the short skate back was now undertaken in the dark. With final goodbyes exchanged, we headed for home after an exhausting but fun afternoons sk8ting.

One final thing. Where, you may be asking, does the ‘V’ in ETV come from? Well, if the complete skate was undertaken, this would take the form of an extension from Toombul to Virginia and back. Apparently this is a rarely added option and is only really feasible in winter. Maybe the tour name should be SET (Southbank, Enoggera, Toombul). Then again, maybe not!