more than i bargained for

i decided to be bit adventurous today and bike up to zac's mum's house instead of just biking 5 min to the train station, sitting on a train for 15 min and then biking 5 more minutes to denise's place. i thought i'd even go the more scenic round about way up the darebin creek trail. before i even got across our street i discovered i had a flat. so i spent 20 min changing the tube (put back the repaired one i took out the day i had a flat on my lunch brake). before i even got to the trail i got hit with a brief rain shower (it wasn't too bad though-- kinda refreshing and only lasted a couple minutes). i got about 11km up the trail and got kinda lost. i'm gonna have to look at a map but i'm not sure where i was but there were just fields of yellow grass and i was on a very unkept track with the remains of truck tire prints with grass growing over it. then i discovered i had a flat (again!). fortunately i'd brought a repair kit and the pump. i figured it was probably just as easy to keep pumping it up every few minutes instead of taking apart and trying to find the hole and fix it while sitting in a field. i knew i was somewhere around latrobe uni but i had no idea where. i kept biking (and stopping to reinflate so i wouldn't damage the rim) until i found a road. it looked like part of the university property but i had no idea where or what direction to head to get to plenty road. i called zac at work and tried to describe where i was but he didn't know either. i got up to a main road and found an intersection then called zac again to tell him where i was. he looked on the melways and gave me directions to get to plenty road and then i could find my way from there. i kept riding along the footpath stopping every couple minutes to pump up the tube (i think the hole must have been getting bigger cuz it was deflating a lot faster-- probably didn't help that i had 2 heavy panniers attached to the back either). i eventually made it to denise's (90 minutes after i left home) after pumping up the tube at least a dozen times. i ended up walking the last couple blocks or so cuz the last time i pumped up the tube i hit the back of my hand really hard on my bike while trying to get the pump off the tube. i must have hit a nerve cuz it hurt so bad i couldn't do anything with that hand for a couple minutes (it still hurts now but at least i can use my hand). now that i'm clean and fed and having a nice hot cup of tea i'm feeling much better. things should be a little less "adventurous" and a little more fun tonite though. we're going to our friends' engagement party after zac gets here in about 45 minutes (the place its at is near zac's mom's house so we decided to catch a cab from here to there and then spend the nite here at denise's)

it was a scenic trip though: the first shot is about 5 minutes after i got lost (the dirt/short grass in the foreground is what i had been riding on-- this is about the point i realized i had a flat)
the tree in the pond was the first point i felt i could describe something to zac and called him ("i'm near a pond with a tree in it. there's a footy oval on the other side. i'm somewhere near latrobe uni can you tell me where to go?")