Off Topic With Ashley

The bike ride was a wonderful mess. We got caught out in a hailstorm (twice) and the trains weren’t running when I went to go home.

It sounds like a disaster, but I had all kinds of fun that day. The trip out was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, and only took about half an hour or so before we’d reached the dam. It also only took about half an hour or so for the ominous clouds to burst open as well, so we had to quickly duck under the nearest shelter lest we get extremely wet.

We ended up getting extremely wet anyway. Mat had thought ahead and brought a raincoat, but I’d kind of betted on it being a hot, dry day. The forecast was for clouds, not thunderstorms and the only shelter within half a kilometre was this tiny little awning over an electric barbecue. So we stood out bikes up at each end and huddled under it as the rain and wind got stronger and stronger.

Eventually shit started flying out of the trees, and Matt’s bike blew over. I had to strap my helmet to my head because it was going to fly away, and the rain was blowing right through the damn shelter. Then the hail started — lightly at first — you could hardly tell what was going on, but then the ground was covered in it like gigantic vicious snowflakes of death. They were only small, but I’d be willing to bet had we been stuck without shelter they would have been disappointingly painful.

Eventually the rain stopped, the sun came out, and Matt was all like “let’s go, now!” and I was all like “lol, no,” and pointed at a wall of grey moving quickly toward us from across the dam. Within five minutes the rain and wind and hail had started up again, so we huddled under the shelter once more like tumours under a flap of skin for another twenty minutes, and watched the ducks bob on the lake like ducks bobbing on a lake.

We got out of that dreadful place the moment the rain had died down enough for us to contemplate going out in it.

We pedalled down the hill away from the dam, got lost in the new urban sprawl that’s sprung up despite the lack of infrastructure in Warner of all places, and headed back to the train station via Brendale, Strathpine, Bray Park, Lawnton, and Petrie.

Other things that happened include me getting mud all over every piece of my body, my cycling all the way home from Petrie, some guy feeding his rather large torso out through a car window to berate me for having the audacity to cycle on the road, and my trying to use a self-service checkout and failing miserably. (Apparently choosing “I have my own bag” if you have your own bag is a no-no, weighing bananas now requires a degree in engineering, and “please remove your card” on the contrary means “please do not remove your card.” I think I took ten minutes, a bag check, and three requests for assistance from the humourless check-out girl before I’d managed to pay for my bottle of Coke and two items of fruit.)

I’d still do all of it again though, I’m a sucker for punishment.