When he (ie Mr Burns) said "The best-laid plans of mice and men gang aft
agley and leave us naught but grief and pain."
The planned Tour des oiseaux was implemented as scheduled with 5 other
members joining me despite a less than dry weather forecast. The grief had
already commenced since after watching a couple of yellow-tailed
black-cockatoos demolishing cones from a pine tree adjacent to the bike path
I found my rear tyre was now somewhat resembling a pancake. (Pain would
surely have followed if one of the cones being dropped by the birds had
landed on my skull - at least it would have checked out the bike helmet.)
A fairly brisk tube replacement was made, but the only source of the
puncture appeared to be malfunction of the lining rubber, which was
resolved. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the rail-lawn at Nerang Pool
further grief was evident, unlike air in my only spare tyre, which was now
of course no longer a spare. A jog to the Carillion, pushing the bike,
enabled me to show the others the pied cormorant roost on the nearby small
island.
Following a strategic review - starting from the fact that I was unable to
run around the Lake pushing my bike - it was decided that the route would be
changed to visit the Canoe Club and Peninsula cormorant etc breeding
colonies. Many thanks to Geoffrey Dabb for taking over the leadership role:
I hope he didn't also take over the role of puncture recipient!
The other members who had attended may be interested to know that while
waiting for Frances to come and pick me up I was able to find a small sliver
of glass embedded in the casing of my tyre at the right spot. However it
was at such an angle that without weight on the tyre it didn't stick through
the inside but could only be seen as a coloured spot on the outside. Grrrrr.
Martin
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