Last Saturday the weather was glorious, so we decided to take the bikes on the train and head to the Farmers Market at the Collingwood Children's Farm.

We hadn't been to the market before, and we weren't disappointed. It's more than double the size of our local market, and I noted that it offers much more in the way of fresh produce, rather than various baked goods which appear at ours. While they're delicious, they certainly aren't what we really need!

Before we arrived at the market though, there was a train and bike ride..let's talk about the train ride shall we? It always seems like a nice idea to pop the bike on the train and head towards the city. In reality, it's not very pleasant. First off, we had three bikes; the big dummy which is a long tail bike and as that suggests, it's long, my bike, which is an upright Dutch style affair with the child seat on the back.. It also seems bigger than your usual bike, and lastly is my sister's sensible sized bike with added width from the panniers. Finding a place to stand with all bikes without getting in the way of the doors is difficult. Melbourne is a really bike friendly city, and I wish public transport would catch up!

Prior to the train filling up

The train was filling up and we realised our initial plan of getting off at Flinders Street and catching another train to Victoria Park was silly, so we hopped off at Hawthorn and road to the yarra trail. A pleasant, but steep in places ride later and we were at the market. Chaos!!

I am SO glad that it never occurred to me to drive to the market. The car park was full and cars were banked up round the corner, people were everywhere. We walked the bikes down to the market entrance, chained them to the fence and headed in where we proceeded to have a nice day chasing our two year old, buying some quality produce, drinking delicious brewed chai, and munching on some great food from the cafe.

I highly recommend heading down, but do be prepared for crowds on a sunny day.