2023-08-24 -37 144

Thu 24 Aug 2023 in -37,144: -37.6450231, 144.9805885 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox

Participants

• Stevage

Expedition

Approach

A 20 kilometre bike ride to a rubbish tip? I'm so excited.

From StreetView, there isn't obviously a gate blocking access to the point. On the other hand, it's some kind of working tip slash refuse sorting facility, about which I really don't have any useful knowledge.

Having learnt my lesson from my other recent geohash in Epping, I know the Galada Tamboore bike path is not an option. So what to do? Ah, never mind, I'll figure it out.

On the bike, up the Merri Creek. The weather is gorgeous. Sunny, blue skies. A bit of a wind. Still good. Barely anyone about. Maybe they're at work.

For once, I manage to follow the trail all the way up to the M80 without taking a dead-end or finding myself on single-track. Maybe I'm learning. I'm in a good mood. I'm appreciating all the little saplings planted along the way, the little bits of parkland being landscaped, and also the big bits of parkland being landscaped.

And then the M80. The great thing about arriving at the M80 is you can't be disappointed. It's a spectacularly shit place to be, but you know that. Trying to get across it is always going to be an incredibly noisy, ugly, unpleasant endeavour.

Curiously, Google Maps shows a bike path on Mahoney's Road, which runs parallel to the M80 before crossing it. Could it be? I saunter off the bike path cautiously to check. I giggle. Hell no.

Into Campbellfield, where I might as well be in a different country. Trees are replaced by smashed cars. Smashed vehicles everywhere. In front yards. Stacked on top of each other. Parked in the street. Piled on old tyres in the street. Smashed trucks. Smashed taxis. Spare bumper bars. Cars without bumper bars. Chassis. Chassises? Chassis's? Many of them.

I sidle around a shopping mall and meekly hug the footpath up Sydney Road. Jesus that's a lot of cars.

Onto a different bit of the Galada Tamboore path, on the western side of Merri Creek. It's marvellous! What a view! Stunning! I can see the Dandenongs! There is much grass.

And then out along Cooper Rd which has a surprisingly good footpath masquerading as a bike path. Which ends extremely suddenly, and rather alarmingly, at a small cliff. I am undaunted.

• 

  Hell no, I am not cycling on that.

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  Campbellfield Plaza. Not my thing.

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  Unexpectedly lovely views.

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  Precipitous end to the footpath.

Attack

Into the tip! There is a big gate! But it is open! There is no one around! I dash in! I am giddy! I zoom to the spot! I find it immediately! Can you sense my excitement?!

I am worried about getting caught, but I'm not even sure if I'm doing anything wrong. I run back up an embankment for a better view, and to tip the scales in favour of "definitely doing something wrong". I hate uncertainty.

A ute drives past. I start to run for freedom, but slow down, like Arya Stark escaping King's Landing. Calm as night. Quiet as a shadow. Soft as a pillow. The ute driver doesn't notice me. It works.

Suddenly a bevy of cement mixers pulls in. Maybe this is where unused concrete goes to die. A moment's silence.

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  Entrance to the tip.

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  Success!

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  The view from up the embankment. Not sure what I expected, but I think I got it.

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  I had the intention of reading the site rules more carefully when I got home to work out whether I was allowed to be there or not.

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  Cement truck invasion

Retreat

Back on the bike. A quick fast food snack while Crabb and Sales regale me with tales of Indiana Jones and Mission Impossible, and a rare story involving James Corden where he doesn't come off sounding like a complete asshat.

I'm riding south, retracing my steps. The sun is going down. Soon, a speedy cyclist is on my tail. Then he is passing me. A bloke in a flanny, and shorts. I give chase. Why not?

He's fast. He's fit. He's quicker up the hills. But I think I have the edge on the twists and turns, and on the gravel. He pulls away, I catch up again. It would be rude to attempt to overtake, especially with my obnoxiously flashing rear light.

The chase goes on. How long will it last? We pass through suburbs I can't name, getting closer to home. At last he exits the bike path in Thornbury. I accidentally nearly follow him, but recover, sighing at the end of our brief relationship.

At Normanby Rd, he suddenly appears again, just in front of me. He's taken a sneaky road shortcut, but it hasn't really saved him time. We cross the road and make our way back onto the bike path. It seems I know a better way, and slip ahead. How long can this go on?

I get off at the big ramp up to CERES. Of course, he does too. I wangle through to Stewart St, he's still on my tail.

I slow down and we have a little chat. He seems like a nice bloke. He appreciated the chase as well, a nice hard ride at the end of his day's commute.

Soon I bid him farewell, and I am home.

Photos

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  City views on the way home. It felt much darker than this.

Achievements

Stevage earned the Bicycle geohash achievement by cycling 40km to the (-37, 144) geohash on 2023-08-24.