Sunday Afternoon.
Aug. 1st, 2006 05:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maxcelcatWe drove from Wallan to Whittlesea, where we found the "town centre" and feasted on fish 'n' chips from one of the two fish 'n' chip joints right next to each other. I had hopes of finding a decent decaf "wanker" latte, but for good or ill, Whittlesea hasn't sucummed to that rich Melbournians getting out of town for the weekend syndrome like many other towns. Barwon Heads, the Yarra Valley, Ocean Grove, Castlemaine, to cite some examples.
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evildoom_bunny and I went back to King Lake National park. We walked in there a few weeks back, the last time we were in Wallan, but the sun had gone down by the time we got anywhere interesting. This time we drove down to a barbecue area (what is it with this country and frying sausages in the open air???) and went on a bush walk... For all of 500 metres. About half way along, there was a viewing platform next to a piss poor little weir on a piss poor little creek. I'd been saying to evil doom that this seemed like a pretty lame forest and a pretty lame walk. When we came across the weir - with a viewing platform, for crying out loud - I laughed and laughed. Like I've never seen a cement weir on a river. And some... Rocks! Wow! Thrillsville!
Despite hardly being able to walk from laughing so hard, we continued on to some waterfalls I can't remember the name of. They were ok, some fifty metres of rock with a couple of cupfulls of water running over them. Ah well, at least I breathed some fresh air and saw some trees. I said to evil doom "Ok, so, I'm more of a green at a distance. I like the idea of trees, forest etc. but I don't really have much interest in actually walking through wilderness." Keep it all, bankrupt Gunns forestry, but I ain't going to carry a pack into the Styx Valley in Tassie with Bob Brown.
We drove to the top of Mount Sugarloaf. There was a tiny view of the city through a gap in the trees. But evil doom and I spent most of our time up there... SMSing... Come on, it was the only place we'd had reception for a while! Note to self: I should get out of zone one more often.
We went back to Northcote through Whittlesea because I didn't want to drive the really really windy roads out of Kinglake back into St. Andrews and Hurstbridge. We stopped off to buy a shitty coffee for evil doom at a shop on top of the mountain, and stopped again for some great honey from a roadside stall. As it was, Fuji the Wonder car's brakes were fading by the time we got out of the mountains.
Driving back into town, we had the dubious pleasure of seeing a whole lot of new development that's springing up out that way - Mill Park, and other nameless suburbs plonked in between paddocks still grazing cows. Damn. Talk about ugly. All these generic shitty modern houses - built right to the edge of the block, no eves, barely any insulation, sucking down electricity from the grid to run the air conditioner - which someone somewhere must be aspiring to. No public transport, no nothing. They should be putting down train lines before they start putting up the houses, otherwise in a few years everyone will be bitching about all the driving they have to do.
I will never, ever, ever, EVER be drawn to a place like that. I will live in a shitty unit in the inner city till my (non-existent) kids bitch about sharing a room. Then I will take them out there and show them what a big house in a new suburb looks like - the slums of tomorrow! - and they'll stop whining. Or I'll smack em :-) Seriously, who are these people who still think a quarter acre block is a good idea? Aspire to something else! How interesting that four weirdos I know - me,evildoom_bunny, stillbeing and Luna the half-Chinese Goth, came from North Balwyn, North Ringwood, Bayswater and Rowville respectively.
"Poor little middle class me" - Eddie Perfect.
Anyway, that was my weekend. I was in Northcote, Point Cook, Bayswater, Wallan, Whittlesea and King Lake. 275 Kilometres worth of driving and three blog entries. That was a quiet weekend for me!
evildoom_bunny and I went back to King Lake National park. We walked in there a few weeks back, the last time we were in Wallan, but the sun had gone down by the time we got anywhere interesting. This time we drove down to a barbecue area (what is it with this country and frying sausages in the open air???) and went on a bush walk... For all of 500 metres. About half way along, there was a viewing platform next to a piss poor little weir on a piss poor little creek. I'd been saying to evil doom that this seemed like a pretty lame forest and a pretty lame walk. When we came across the weir - with a viewing platform, for crying out loud - I laughed and laughed. Like I've never seen a cement weir on a river. And some... Rocks! Wow! Thrillsville!Despite hardly being able to walk from laughing so hard, we continued on to some waterfalls I can't remember the name of. They were ok, some fifty metres of rock with a couple of cupfulls of water running over them. Ah well, at least I breathed some fresh air and saw some trees. I said to evil doom "Ok, so, I'm more of a green at a distance. I like the idea of trees, forest etc. but I don't really have much interest in actually walking through wilderness." Keep it all, bankrupt Gunns forestry, but I ain't going to carry a pack into the Styx Valley in Tassie with Bob Brown.
We drove to the top of Mount Sugarloaf. There was a tiny view of the city through a gap in the trees. But evil doom and I spent most of our time up there... SMSing... Come on, it was the only place we'd had reception for a while! Note to self: I should get out of zone one more often.
We went back to Northcote through Whittlesea because I didn't want to drive the really really windy roads out of Kinglake back into St. Andrews and Hurstbridge. We stopped off to buy a shitty coffee for evil doom at a shop on top of the mountain, and stopped again for some great honey from a roadside stall. As it was, Fuji the Wonder car's brakes were fading by the time we got out of the mountains.
Driving back into town, we had the dubious pleasure of seeing a whole lot of new development that's springing up out that way - Mill Park, and other nameless suburbs plonked in between paddocks still grazing cows. Damn. Talk about ugly. All these generic shitty modern houses - built right to the edge of the block, no eves, barely any insulation, sucking down electricity from the grid to run the air conditioner - which someone somewhere must be aspiring to. No public transport, no nothing. They should be putting down train lines before they start putting up the houses, otherwise in a few years everyone will be bitching about all the driving they have to do.
I will never, ever, ever, EVER be drawn to a place like that. I will live in a shitty unit in the inner city till my (non-existent) kids bitch about sharing a room. Then I will take them out there and show them what a big house in a new suburb looks like - the slums of tomorrow! - and they'll stop whining. Or I'll smack em :-) Seriously, who are these people who still think a quarter acre block is a good idea? Aspire to something else! How interesting that four weirdos I know - me,
evildoom_bunny, stillbeing and Luna the half-Chinese Goth, came from North Balwyn, North Ringwood, Bayswater and Rowville respectively."Poor little middle class me" - Eddie Perfect.
Anyway, that was my weekend. I was in Northcote, Point Cook, Bayswater, Wallan, Whittlesea and King Lake. 275 Kilometres worth of driving and three blog entries. That was a quiet weekend for me!
