linear park walk mark ii

I've kept promising myself I would go back down to Linear Park since my self imposed 1200 mile hike (I exaggerate, we know this) down there a while back... this time with a fully charged camera and walking much less track than I did last time.

To be honest, my main aim was to document an amazing piece of graffiti/street art I saw down there beside one of the storm drain outlets... the main problem with that plan was that because I'm really, really, really directionally challenged, while I could remember roughly where the storm drain was within the geography of the river, I actually had no idea where the hell that piece of river was in relation to the rest of the world.

So, since this morning was gloriously sunny without a cloud in the sky, I hopped in the car, randomly picked a spot in the street directory that I thought might be somewhere vaguely around where I needed to be and set off at about 11am.

The first spot I'd picked was nowhere near where I needed to be, so I tried following the river through the backstreets for a bit, got stuck in a cul de sac, found the main road again and picked a second spot that I thought might have been more likely. Unfortunately, while it looked a little more promising, there were no available car parks where the road met the river, so I had to head into the backstreets again. All the while either stalking or being stalked by this guy on a bike, who, fortunately, took a left turn finally while I went straight on... or went straight on when I turned left... I forget.

The joy of being directionally challenged sometimes is that you just end up at roughly the right place, but you have no idea how the hell you did it and probably couldn't do it again to save your life.

I parked the car at the end of the street (ensuring, of course, that I was parked in the same direction as the travel of vehicles on that side of the road... sarcasm much) where it met up with Linear Park and decided to take a wander to see where I was in relation to the rest of the track and how much further I might need to go to get to the right place.

I knew I wasn't really in the right spot, but I figured I could wander along for a bit, then come back, jump in the car and try further back towards home.

But then I made my fatal mistake... I didn't follow the same path that I had when I'd been down there the first time, this time opting to follow the river instead of the path (which actually made the walk longer, since the river bends back on itself twice, whereas the path takes the, no pun intended, path of least resistance)... and by the time I'd found the path again I recognised a couple of areas and thought that I had to be getting close... and when you've been doing that for a while, you kind of start to wonder if there's much point in turning around, having to walk all the way back to the car and then find another spot to park, rather than just continuing to walk.

Which is exactly what I ended up doing...

And of course, it was taking longer than it would have if I'd just been walking, since I was stopping every now and again to take photos... sometimes one or two, sometimes a bunch... which totally backs up my assumption that if my camera had been fully charged when I did the original Linear Park walk, it would have taken three hours instead of just over two. All up, I ended up taking 166 photos, which I think is a new record for the maximum number of shots I've taken during any one event or activity (especially since the majority of them actually came out)... and yes, I did stop to work that out... shut up...

Unfortunately I had also neglected to bring my headphones for my phone, so I had to be content with listening to both nature and the yelling and screaming of other park users rather than the radio... but I survived...

Anyway, finally I started to see things that were very familiar (in relation to where I actually wanted to be, since technically the whole place was familiar), and knew I was definitely close to the aforementioned graffiti... which also seemed to be some sort of odd nexus or focal point for every man, woman, child, bike rider, dog walker, pram, etc to slow down or stop (probably because the path goes from wide open area to narrow pathway there the storm drain is, but still)... but when I followed the path up to the top of the drain and looked down over...

It was gone...

Some dumbass council worker had painted over the gorgeous piece of street art with dull grey pain... Cute anime-themed girl art was all gone!

But when I took a second look I realised she was JUST visible underneath the paint, since she was painted with neon pink hair and thick black outline... and the council worker in question obviously didn't really care about doing a thorough job, just a quick one.

What does really baffle me is that the art in question had a speech bubble coming off of it that says "We're all friends here"... she was gone... completely... the speech bubble... still there... now what's up with that? Does that makes sense to anyone else?

The Council Worker's Mind... it'll never cease to amaze me...

So, at that point, since my whole reason for being out there was pretty much a non-event, I went a little further along the track, until it forced me to cross over the river again, and decided that was probably far enough (after taking a few shots standing on the bridge... one of which is the main shot at the top of this post), turned and headed back...

What I didn't realise is that technically the section that I actually wanted to see, I could have walked to it from home without much fuss... and it probably wouldn't have taken me much longer than the whole walk did anyway...

I'm a silly rabbit...

It was a great walk though... the sun was shining, the birds were going nuts, there were dragonflies... life felt good. I think I might have to talk Ma into doing a section of Linear Park with me one of these weekends... just for fun...

By the time I made it back to my car it was around 1:20pm, so I'd been walking for a couple of hours, but I had walked there and back, so double the distance I'd actually covered (if that makes sense)... and I also took the "shortcut" coming back, thus avoiding the river doubling back on itself.

Maybe it's because it's winter, so the days are shorter... but I swear, at around 1pm, the sun seemed really, really low in the sky and it felt like it should have been about 3pm or something... I don't know what that was all about... weird...

I stopped off and got some lunch and a paper on the way home, and was just pulling into the sidestreet that leads to my building's car park when I spotted what I thought was a cat sitting in the middle of the road near a fallen branch. As I got closer, I realised that it was actually a possum... just sitting there in broad daylight, in the middle of the road, munching on the fallen branch.

I was so surprised, I actually stopped the car right next to it, Pink blaring out of the open car window... and the possum just looked at me briefly, then went on munching his dinner... I got my camera out and took a shot of him (while still sitting in the car)... he just went on munching his dinner... I told him to shoo, although not with much conviction... you guessed it... still munching... in the end I gave up and continued around the corner... for no apparent reason as the car started moving again he freaked out and rolled over onto his back before scampering away...

Stupid possum...

And now I'm sitting here sulking because even though it's been a wonderfully sunny and warm day, inside my apartment is still freezing cold!

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