Tim likes to run and one of his vacation activities is leaving us to get all gross and sweaty. Seriously though, it's a great hobby to have while on vacation. You get yourself in shape and at the same time you have a chance to see the area. I think it's much better than going to a gym and using the treadmill. When we were in Sydney, we learned that treadmills were used as punishment for convicts. Yeah, and I still see them that way. To me, they pretty much are torture.
Anyway, I'm doing some more Melbourne learning. I'm looking at the City of Melbourne website, and that led me to another website called that's Melbourne. That's Melbourne has a PDF file you can download which contains walking and jogging tracks. Tim might enjoy looking at it. I could actually use it myself. I don't usually run, but I do love to walk.
I'm going to look through the little booklet.
The front page has blue and white people walking. That's pretty cool. Maybe they're descendants of those Avatar people.
The second page has health advice on running. I think it makes running seem way too complicated. You're supposed to see a doctor before you start a regimen, and you're supposed to buy specific shoes for running. So really. We need shoes for every sport we participate in? I have a very athletic friend. He plays a variety of things. I wonder if he has a different pair of shoes for each activity. I'll have to ask him someday. Tim bikes and runs. I think he actually DOES have shoes for each of those activities. I might be wrong.
Personally, I like a more free-spirited approach to running. Remember when Phoebe ran on Friends?
Back to the doctor thing. I can imagine seeing your doc if you already suspect you have a health problem. Let's say you have a heart murmur, or you broke your hip a few years ago. Then it makes sense to see the doctor. But do they really expect the average healthy person to go see their doctor before they start an exercise plan? And what if they change their regimen? Do they have to go back to the doctor? If people actually follow advice like this; then that explains why doctor's offices are often so crowded.
Page three has some safety advice. This sounds a bit more practical to me. It's stuff like tell people where you're going, and have a phone with you....or change for a phone call.
They have a chart showing how many calories you'll burn by running certain amounts. I can't understand it because I don't speak the language. I hate those charts, though. It always makes exercise look hopeless to me. Walk for an hour and you'll burn off that Pop Tart and apple you ate for breakfast. If it takes an hour of walking to burn off just that, how the hell do we burn off that HUGE sundae we shared? Reading stuff like that makes me want to just give up and stop eating. Or stop exercising. I think it's better to just happily eat and blindly exercise. We eat a lot when we're on holiday, and we do a moderate amount of walking, running, swimming, etc. We usually don't gain weight. So I think it works out.
Page 4 has various fun run things. Maybe one of them will be happening when we're in Melbourne. Tim would probably enjoy that.
I think the rest of the pages are map routes.
The first one is in Fawkner Park off of St. Kilda Road. Lord Wiki just reminded me that Fawkner is that other guy besides Batman who helped start Melbourne. And he opened up Melbourne's first hotel. His story sounds interesting. He was in Van Diemen's Land and financed a ship trip over to Not-Yet-Melbourne. But then when the ship was about to leave, he had problems with creditors and couldn't join the voyage. He had to wait for the ship's second journey.
I hope if Tim runs through this park, he remembers all that about Fawkner.
The next run is called Fawkner Park/Shine-St. Kilda's Ramble. I'm not sure what that means. The Royal Botanical Gardens is part of it. Let me look at Google Maps. That might help.
Okay. Yeah. It does help. Royal Botanical Gardens is a tiny bit north of Fawkner park. So this run has you going through both parks. It's 6 km. I forgot how to translate that to miles, but Tim will know. He's good at that. In fact, he doesn't go by miles anymore. He's totally a kilometer person now.
The next run is another Royal Botanical Gardens one. It's called King's Domain/Tan Track. It has you going near the Yarra River. I think Tim will like that. He seems to like water views. You also get to see the Sydney Myer Music Bowl. I'm not sure if Tim will care about that. Maybe.
Page 8 has the Docklands route. It's near the water. Which water? Let me figure that out. Google Maps shows that it's a tiny bit west of the CBD. It's Yarra River stuff. And then there's that big body of water under it....the ocean, I think. I'm sure the water area has a specific name though. Maybe Victoria Harbour?
Here we go. This site has the answer. It's Port Phillip Bay.
The next route is Fitzroy/Treasury Gardens. On this one, you get to see Cook's cottage. My parents saw it. They had the photos, and it totally confused me. Captain Cook lived in Melbourne? How the hell? I thought maybe I had my history confused, and at some point Cook returned to Australia. Stupid of me to think that because I've read books on Cook's travels. I didn't remember any bit about him actually living in Australia.
Lord Wiki is telling me that Cook died in 1779. That doesn't afford him a chance to retire in Melbourne, and put up a little cottage.
So who does that cottage belong to?
This website provides the answers.
The cottage was originally built in 1755 by Cook's mom and dad. It was built in the UK, not Melbourne. Obviously. Then in 1935, they took down the cottage, sent the pieces to Melbourne, and rebuilt it. That's pretty cool.
If Cook's cottage isn't enough for us, this run/walk route also has Sinclair's cottage. Who is Sinclair? Well the Fitzroy Garden site says he was a Scottish guy who came to Melbourne with his wife and children. Glad to know that. Let's move on.
Page 10 is the Royal Park/Princess Park route. I wonder if that Princess Theatre is around here. I have no idea where these parks are. I need to look at Google Maps.
I see it. It's north of the CBD. Princess Park is right about The University of Melbourne. I'm worrying that, in a previous post, I may have confused Royal Park with the Royal Botanical Gardens.
Nope! Good! I didn't. It was the education post I was worried about. I remembered mentioning that some schools were near the Royal Botanical Gardens. I thought maybe they were near Royal Park instead, and I had passed on the wrong information. But the school (Melbourne Grammar School) is near Royal Botanical Gardens, and not Royal Park.
The next route is a short one in the Royal Park only. It includes a pond and skink habitat. That might be fun. The Melbourne zoo is in Royal Park, but this route doesn't include that. It might be hard to run through the zoo. It would be awesome if someone ran like Phoebe through there.
The next route is through the Princess Park only. And from what I see on Google Maps, the Princess Theatre is NOT near Princess Park. Too bad.
For the sport obsessed, we next have the Melbourne Cricket Ground route. It's north of the Royal Botanical Gardens. The route isn't all about sport. You get some Yarra river action, and also go past Federation Square. What's that again?
Lord Wiki says it's a public space filled with restaurants, shops, and various interesting things.
The last route is called Birrarung Marr. It's in the same area as the last route. There's major river action here. I think Tim will like it.
I had fun with this. And I definitely don't think the information will be applied to only Tim's runs. I might use them as inspiration for my walks. And maybe the three of us will do some leisurely walks together. Oh! And maybe our friends will come with us. Then they can play tour guide.
Anyway, I'm doing some more Melbourne learning. I'm looking at the City of Melbourne website, and that led me to another website called that's Melbourne. That's Melbourne has a PDF file you can download which contains walking and jogging tracks. Tim might enjoy looking at it. I could actually use it myself. I don't usually run, but I do love to walk.
I'm going to look through the little booklet.
The front page has blue and white people walking. That's pretty cool. Maybe they're descendants of those Avatar people.
The second page has health advice on running. I think it makes running seem way too complicated. You're supposed to see a doctor before you start a regimen, and you're supposed to buy specific shoes for running. So really. We need shoes for every sport we participate in? I have a very athletic friend. He plays a variety of things. I wonder if he has a different pair of shoes for each activity. I'll have to ask him someday. Tim bikes and runs. I think he actually DOES have shoes for each of those activities. I might be wrong.
Personally, I like a more free-spirited approach to running. Remember when Phoebe ran on Friends?
Back to the doctor thing. I can imagine seeing your doc if you already suspect you have a health problem. Let's say you have a heart murmur, or you broke your hip a few years ago. Then it makes sense to see the doctor. But do they really expect the average healthy person to go see their doctor before they start an exercise plan? And what if they change their regimen? Do they have to go back to the doctor? If people actually follow advice like this; then that explains why doctor's offices are often so crowded.
Page three has some safety advice. This sounds a bit more practical to me. It's stuff like tell people where you're going, and have a phone with you....or change for a phone call.
They have a chart showing how many calories you'll burn by running certain amounts. I can't understand it because I don't speak the language. I hate those charts, though. It always makes exercise look hopeless to me. Walk for an hour and you'll burn off that Pop Tart and apple you ate for breakfast. If it takes an hour of walking to burn off just that, how the hell do we burn off that HUGE sundae we shared? Reading stuff like that makes me want to just give up and stop eating. Or stop exercising. I think it's better to just happily eat and blindly exercise. We eat a lot when we're on holiday, and we do a moderate amount of walking, running, swimming, etc. We usually don't gain weight. So I think it works out.
Page 4 has various fun run things. Maybe one of them will be happening when we're in Melbourne. Tim would probably enjoy that.
I think the rest of the pages are map routes.
The first one is in Fawkner Park off of St. Kilda Road. Lord Wiki just reminded me that Fawkner is that other guy besides Batman who helped start Melbourne. And he opened up Melbourne's first hotel. His story sounds interesting. He was in Van Diemen's Land and financed a ship trip over to Not-Yet-Melbourne. But then when the ship was about to leave, he had problems with creditors and couldn't join the voyage. He had to wait for the ship's second journey.
I hope if Tim runs through this park, he remembers all that about Fawkner.
The next run is called Fawkner Park/Shine-St. Kilda's Ramble. I'm not sure what that means. The Royal Botanical Gardens is part of it. Let me look at Google Maps. That might help.
Okay. Yeah. It does help. Royal Botanical Gardens is a tiny bit north of Fawkner park. So this run has you going through both parks. It's 6 km. I forgot how to translate that to miles, but Tim will know. He's good at that. In fact, he doesn't go by miles anymore. He's totally a kilometer person now.
The next run is another Royal Botanical Gardens one. It's called King's Domain/Tan Track. It has you going near the Yarra River. I think Tim will like that. He seems to like water views. You also get to see the Sydney Myer Music Bowl. I'm not sure if Tim will care about that. Maybe.
Page 8 has the Docklands route. It's near the water. Which water? Let me figure that out. Google Maps shows that it's a tiny bit west of the CBD. It's Yarra River stuff. And then there's that big body of water under it....the ocean, I think. I'm sure the water area has a specific name though. Maybe Victoria Harbour?
Here we go. This site has the answer. It's Port Phillip Bay.
The next route is Fitzroy/Treasury Gardens. On this one, you get to see Cook's cottage. My parents saw it. They had the photos, and it totally confused me. Captain Cook lived in Melbourne? How the hell? I thought maybe I had my history confused, and at some point Cook returned to Australia. Stupid of me to think that because I've read books on Cook's travels. I didn't remember any bit about him actually living in Australia.
Lord Wiki is telling me that Cook died in 1779. That doesn't afford him a chance to retire in Melbourne, and put up a little cottage.
So who does that cottage belong to?
This website provides the answers.
The cottage was originally built in 1755 by Cook's mom and dad. It was built in the UK, not Melbourne. Obviously. Then in 1935, they took down the cottage, sent the pieces to Melbourne, and rebuilt it. That's pretty cool.
If Cook's cottage isn't enough for us, this run/walk route also has Sinclair's cottage. Who is Sinclair? Well the Fitzroy Garden site says he was a Scottish guy who came to Melbourne with his wife and children. Glad to know that. Let's move on.
Page 10 is the Royal Park/Princess Park route. I wonder if that Princess Theatre is around here. I have no idea where these parks are. I need to look at Google Maps.
I see it. It's north of the CBD. Princess Park is right about The University of Melbourne. I'm worrying that, in a previous post, I may have confused Royal Park with the Royal Botanical Gardens.
Nope! Good! I didn't. It was the education post I was worried about. I remembered mentioning that some schools were near the Royal Botanical Gardens. I thought maybe they were near Royal Park instead, and I had passed on the wrong information. But the school (Melbourne Grammar School) is near Royal Botanical Gardens, and not Royal Park.
The next route is a short one in the Royal Park only. It includes a pond and skink habitat. That might be fun. The Melbourne zoo is in Royal Park, but this route doesn't include that. It might be hard to run through the zoo. It would be awesome if someone ran like Phoebe through there.
The next route is through the Princess Park only. And from what I see on Google Maps, the Princess Theatre is NOT near Princess Park. Too bad.
For the sport obsessed, we next have the Melbourne Cricket Ground route. It's north of the Royal Botanical Gardens. The route isn't all about sport. You get some Yarra river action, and also go past Federation Square. What's that again?
Lord Wiki says it's a public space filled with restaurants, shops, and various interesting things.
The last route is called Birrarung Marr. It's in the same area as the last route. There's major river action here. I think Tim will like it.
I had fun with this. And I definitely don't think the information will be applied to only Tim's runs. I might use them as inspiration for my walks. And maybe the three of us will do some leisurely walks together. Oh! And maybe our friends will come with us. Then they can play tour guide.