Mini Melbourne, so named because of it’s resemblance to the format of the Melbourne uber-skate. That’s to say, you catch a train from the city, stay on it for an unfeasibly long time then get off and skate home. Easy! Well, not quite. There’s the small matter of a couple of little hills along the way, not to mention the narrow paths, the impending darkness and, oh, did I mention the hills!

The meeting point for the tour was the south side of the Goodwill Bridge. This area is now slowly starting to look less like a building site and more like an extension of the arbour (all be it with a road through the middle of it), still the piles of gravel and building materials are slowly disappearing. By 1:40pm most people had arrived including Bruce sporting a rather striking pair of new sun glasses not inappropriately named ‘Pimps’. Bruce’s tour leading duties were to be assisted by Lyndal, Vaughan, Dave and Jo.

The first phase of the tour was to catch a train from Southbank to Murarrie (the derivation of which means plenty or sweet water). We all duly made our way across the road to the station, purchased our tickets and the train arrived a few minutes later. 10.75km’s down the track we disembarked at Murarrie Station, ticket vending machine number 313, 48 parking spaces and seven meters above sea level. By now, time was ticking on and already the 4:30pm finish time for the tour was beginning to look very optimistic.

After pulling our skates on we set off across the Murarrie Recreation reserve heading for Minnippi Parklands. As we neared the end of a long smooth stretch of path, Jo, who was skating up at the front, suddenly became the object of attention from a rather aggressive magpie. It was quickly scarred off by an arm waving Dave, however as Bruce arrived on the scene, he decided he wanted to be harassed by an angry magpie as well. To this end he started chasing it round the adjacent field meeting each of its swooping attacks with a lunging head butt (non of which connected thankfully). While the magpie hadn’t quite met its match, it must certainly have been thinking it had come across a serious threat to its wellbeing. Pity the poor person who came along next and had to face its now considerably increased irate attacks in defence of its nesting young.

Leaving the Magpie wrestling a small child to the ground, we continued on our way and were soon having a rest in the car park at Minnippi Parklands. While this is an entire skate tour in its own right, we would be incorporating this into the Mini Melbourne tour as a passing feature. At this point we were joined by Andy and Teresa who had come directly from a previous days sailing excursion. Andy, with his normal impeccable timing, arrived mere minutes before we came to our lunch stop for the day, a bakery on the other side of the Parklands in Carindale Village. As we consumed various baked products, talk turned to the chances of getting back by 4:30pm seeing as the current time was 3:30pm and we were barely a third of the way round the route. The chances were not looking great and we hadn’t hit any really big hills yet!

With lunch finished, we set off once more and made our way towards the elevated suburbs of Carina Heights. After a few slight undulations, Bruce declared that the next section of the skate contained some interesting changes in elevation, mostly of the up variety, that would continue for an extended period of time. The main purpose of this torturous route seems to have been to allow him to pop home and pick up a can of Coke. As we continued our relentless climb up towards the top of Gallipoli Road and Chez Bruce we could feel the air beginning to thin and passing planes looked awfully close (although that may have been a by product of the oxygen deprivation). We finally arrived at the Gibson residence and Bruce duly disappeared inside. As we stood on the opposite pavement waiting for his return, we slowly got our breath back. As the minutes passed, speculation began to circulate as to the whereabouts of the now absent Bruce. Suggestions included him having a shower, having a quick sleep or most likely, indulging in a little light snacking. When he finally re-emerged clutching a can of Coke, the latter suggestion was taken as the most likely. It was proposed that the next time we came this way, he might like to consider the possibility of arranging a mid skate BBQ (with pool facilities if at all possible). With his eyes hidden behind the Pimps, it was hard to tell if he was being serious when he said ‘sure’.

With Bruce’s house perched on the very top of Gallipoli Road the options now facing us were a rather steep decent down the other side, which was rejected due to traffic issues i.e. there was rather a lot of it, or take a sharp left turn into Gyranda Street and make our way over a few more undulations into Kildare Road. As we crested one final steep hill, we suddenly found ourselves at the very peak of Carina Heights. From here the only way was down and the view was truly spectacular. From our new vantage point, we could see all the way out to the Gateway Bridge and every suburb in between.

The downhill run now facing us was the reward for the seemingly endless uphill slog. After dispatching a couple of people to man the various junctions part way down the hill, Bruce sent us down one at a time, warning us of the need to stop at the intersection at the bottom of the road. As we took it in turns to bow before the god of velocity (for extra speed you understand), we quickly assembled at the bottom of the hill now sporting large grins as an acrid smell of smouldering rubber hung heavy in the air. Everyone managed to avoid overshooting the intersection although Sash had a rather hairy moment when she became entangled with a stick during her braking manoeuvre leaving her skating at a rather precarious backwards angle. She was half caught, half pushed upright by Jo, who was manning the crossing, averting any traffic related mishaps as control was regained. Kris, running hockey skates with no brakes, performed a series of alarming looking swooping ‘s’ turns to effectively scrub off speed before coming to a final stop with a huge hockey stop.

At this point in the proceedings, Anne was becoming increasingly worried that her children would be thinking they had no mother. Four thirty had come and gone and we were still a considerable distance from home. Bruce convened a meeting of the tour staff and decided that a more direct route home would be precipitous at this point. A new plan of action was devised and we once more set off.

A slightly more rapid pace was achieved for a while with the continuing supply of fast downhill runs, however a new problem was starting to emerge. Darkness was beginning to creep up on us. This prompted a further upping of the pace and we made good progress until we reached the crossing at the Coorparoo train station. While half the group successfully made it to the far side, the other half was suddenly cut off by flashing lights and a ringing bell indicating the imminent arrival of a train. As we stood looking up the tracks, the pedestrian gates suddenly began to close automatically. This took one or two people by surprise, not the least of which was me as I happened to be leaning on it at the time. A couple of minutes later, a train clattered past, the lights stopped flashing and the gates re-opened. This allowed us to cross to the far side to be greeted by the comedic sight of Andy trapped in a small square of railings formed by the automatically opening gate. After a moments head scratching, brute force turned out to be the order of the day as Andy fought the opening gate back into the closed position.

We all made one final stop at ‘The Common’ next to Stanley Road but were quickly on our way after some gentle prodding from Anne. Minutes later we were all gathered next to the cycle path at the end of LRT where we declared that the skate should be renamed Mt. Bruce. With the last of the daylight rapidly fading away, we said our goodbyes and headed for home after a strenuous but fun afternoon / evenings skating.

P.S. A special thankyou to Andy for providing a route plan so detailed that the people at UBD could have produced an entire map book from it.