Recreation and Leisure
Melburnians participate in a wide range of recreational and leisure activities.
Australian rules football, Association Football, cricket and netball are the most popular participation team sports in Melbourne.
Cycling in Melbourne is a popular pastime, as one can tell from the bevy of cyclists and paths that lie all throughout the city, as well as a spectator sport. Melbourne's flat terrain and extensive off-road paths in green wedges are conducive to riding. Beach Road combines with the Nepean Highway to form a 90-kilometre stretch from Port Melbourne to Sorrento, incorporating the Bayside Trail. It is the city's most popular training route and attracts cyclists from around the world. Thousands of commuters cycle the roads, bike lanes and bike paths daily. Bicycle Victoria's annual events, Around the Bay in a Day and Ride to Work Day, attract tens of thousands of Melburnians. Other events such as the Herald Sun Tour begin and end in the Melbourne area and there are many local cycling events of varying grades all year round.
Triathlon dominates the Beach Road area during summer, when hundreds of amateurs and professionals dive into Port Phillip Bay on Sundays.
Watersports are a big recreational activity in Melbourne. Rowing on the Yarra River is also popular with universities and schools, and there are many boat-sheds along the river. the Yarra is home to the Head of the River, first raced in 1868 and Australia's oldest. The Oarsome Foursome are also from Melbourne. On Port Phillip Bay, boating is popular, as is jetskiing, kitesurfing and windsurfing on St Kilda Beach.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Melbourne
Famous quotes containing the words recreation and/or leisure:
“Media mystifications should not obfuscate a simple, perceivable fact; Black teenage girls do not create poverty by having babies. Quite the contrary, they have babies at such a young age precisely because they are poor—because they do not have the opportunity to acquire an education, because meaningful, well-paying jobs and creative forms of recreation are not accessible to them ... because safe, effective forms of contraception are not available to them.”
—Angela Davis (b. 1944)
“How has he the leisure to be sick
In such a jostling time?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)