"I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike...."

Ever since receiving my new Christmas present I have been singing this chorus to myself.. and today was the day we decided to go on our very first family outing with bikes. Doodlebug and I had our new bikes, Turtle and LP had their upgrades so we decided to go to Homebush for the afternoon.

Amazingly we managed to fit 5 bikes and 5 people in our car - Bertie Bus has his flaws (being unique, highly noticable, unstealable and indestructible to name but a few....) but he comes into his own when we need to transport lots of stuff or people or both.

We didn't go straight to Bicentennial Park this time, but decided to go exploring and we found a spot called Wentworth Common that looked promising.

It was a lovely, sunny afternoon and as we followed a bikepath along the waterfront we saw some wonderful things. There were mangrove boardwalks, lookout towers, shipwrecks and even a great new adventure playground .

We found our way to Bicentennial Park, and the Treillage. I don't know what this name means but I think it might be "tower by avenue with water jets squirting up from the pavement so children can get really soaked". The kids did just that - got soaked.

Biking through the water, running through the water, sitting in the water. Of course we never travel anywhere without spare sets of clothes. The only problem was that the clothes were all in the car. So we had to wring out as much water as possible from the clothes and they cheerfully continued on our ride wearing wet clothes. Must have been quite cooling actually.

They had almost dried out again by the time we found the fountains at the end of Olympic Blvd.

Another happy half an hour was spent here splashing in the water before we rode back towards the car and stopped off for a while at the new adventure playground.

There was a flying fox, climbing nets, shaded areas, sand and...... water. This time in the form of a pond, but no water too dirty for our lot. Before you could say "aaaah, not a good idea", Turtle and LP were happily going for a wade and swim in the pond that is probably frequented more by birds than people.

A wonderful day was had by all.