Ferntree Gully to Diamond Creek

Ferntree Gully to Diamond Creek

The ride started well with six enthusiastic participants. The weather was good and Helen led us off at a brisk pace on a devious route to the Mullum Mullum trail via Ringwood lake. All went well until we were about 5 or six km's in to the Mullum Mullum trail when several walkers advised us that the trail was blocked further on. While we had no reason to disbelieve them we decided to ride on anyway to investigate this ourselves. Sure enough we soon came across a temporary fence and various signs forbidding us to venture further. We considered the possibility of ignoring these however being a law abiding bunch we decided to find an alternative route. This is where things started to go wrong. Karlo said he was sure he knew a way of getting back on the trail if we took the Eastlink trail and rode through the dreaded hills alongside the Ringwood freeway bypass. He was confident and so we were until we found ourselves in suburbs that none of us recognised. There was much discussion about which way to head to get back on course none of which helped much. In the end we decided if we followed the road we found ourselves on in a generally northerly direction we just might come across the trail or at least some part of Melbourne we did recognise. Luckily this turned out to be a good tactic as we eventually came across Warrandyte road and rejoined the Mullum Mullum trail near Daisy's nursery. From there on it was plain sailing and it turned in to a very enjoyable 88km ride which was actually enhanced by getting lost and discovering parts of Melbourne we had not ventured in to before.