Cycling Mount Dandenong

We are very fortunate to live so close to Mount Dandenong which is a hill just over 600m high to the East of the Melbourne CBD. The various hills in the range form the Dandenong Ranges National Park, the ranges are mainly covered in large trees and ferns forming a ‘temperate Rainforest’ (stole that definition from wikipedia).

Chicken Parma
Parma at Pig and Whistle Tavern

There are a number of roads that criss-cross around and over the hills with some great climbs (then descents) in lovely scenery. There are a few little villages dotted around with some pubs, restaurants and cafes; at the Pig and Whistle Tavern as well as great parmas (Australian “classic” which is schnitzel with tomato, cheese and ham on – just realised now it is a schnitzel pizza…) you can get Old Speckled Hen, London Pride and other English beers. I’ll go through the main cycling climbs on Mt Dandenong and throw in some pictures too.

Continue reading “Cycling Mount Dandenong”

Strava Starred Segment Explorer

Since I have moved to Australia i have started using the starred segments in Strava to find climbs and recommended routes to ride but it is a real pain to see where these are located relative to each other. So I decided to knock up a page using the Strava API to do it (the weather was rubbish so i didn’t use up cycling time).

Click Here to give it a go let me know what you think or if you have any issues / ideas in the comments below.

Update 19/09/2018: Now includes segment category filters

Continue reading “Strava Starred Segment Explorer”

Moving to Australia – Settling In

We have been in Australia for a few months now and feeling settled in. After landing in Melbourne we stayed with Michelle’s parents in Caroline Springs in the Western Suburbs. Michelle’s Dad had sorted a car for us before we had arrived which made getting around to sort things much easier.

Continue reading “Moving to Australia – Settling In”

Moving To Australia – Packing and Shipping

In the last post I went through some details of the visa application process, this post is more about the actual move and how the shipping arrangements work.

I will follow up with another post with how we are getting on and settling in.

Continue reading “Moving To Australia – Packing and Shipping”

Moving to Australia – Visa Process

It has been a while since we have written anything up but that is mainly because we have been moving to Australia from London. Michelle is Australian but that still means there was a visa process to go through. I am going to use this post to go over some tips and advice that might be useful for the Visa application process to help anyone else who might come across this.
I will follow up in the next few days with some other posts with how we have been getting on and what we have been getting up to.
Continue reading “Moving to Australia – Visa Process”