circling the inner city.
Mar. 20th, 2010 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccWe planned to do a long walk on the weekend. The length of the walk kept changing, but we eventually settled on from the start to CP4, which was 43.1km. I came into work on Friday all psyched up for the walk.
Then I checked my e-mail.
DSE were doing planned burn offs along our proposed route. CP0-1 was fine, there was an active fire on the track between CP1 and 2, two fires in the vicinity of CP3 and three between CP3 and 4.
Bugger.
Some frantic e-mailing later and we agreed to walk the Capital City Trail, which runs in a loop around inner Melbourne. Shorter than we'd planned (about 32km), but still a decent sized walk. Not that the Bicycle Victoria website could agree on how long it actually was, giving us two different figures which varied by 3km. Never mind.
So we met at Princes Bridge at the slightly later time of 7.30am, and headed off east along the south bank of the Yarra river. 7.30am is prime time for rowers apparently, and lots of crews were out training. We dodged their cycling coaches - I'm always impressed they manage to cycle, talk into a microphone, not look where they're going and not fall in the Yarra - and headed toward Punt Rd. The track along here was dirt, which was nice. Up past Chapel St - fairly quiet this time of morning - and then on to the loop skirting Herring Island on the edge of Como park. Some tennis players in the park and quite a few joggers on the trail with us, but a lot fewer cyclists than I'd been expecting.
About this time we realised why the Bicycle Victoria website might have two different figures - there are trails on both sides of the river, and the southern side actually is longer because of the nature of the loops. It's also less well maintained - we were onto breaking asphalt at this stage - and less popular than the northern side, which had far more cyclists heading on the boardwalk trail under Citylink.
Continuing along the loops we admired the real estate of South Yarra we were passing, before crossing the Yarra to join the northern bank trail at MacRobertson Bridge. The trail veered off from Citylink to join Yarra Boulevard in Richmond and we continued on, this time admiring the extremely pricey riverside real estate of Toorak before passing the Gardiner's Creek Trail turn off and starting to head north again. This part of the trail had more cyclists, none of whom were actually riding on the trail - Yarra Boulevard is a fantastic cycling road, with bugger all cars on the weekend, so pretty much everyone was taking advantage of it. Georgina, who does a lot of cycling, was surprised that she'd never heard of this road before and is now planning to come in and do it again by bike. Round past sporting fields, continuing along the Boulevard.
"Which suburb are we in?"
"Over the river is Hawthorn. This side of the river is Richmond or Burnley."
Inner city Melbourne is commonly divided into two parts, North of the Yarra (NOY) and South of the Yarra (SOY). Traditionally speaking there is little interaction between these two parts - if you live in St Kilda (SOY) you tend to socialise in St Kilda, and if you live in Fitzroy (NOY) you tend to socialise there. North doesn't come south and vice versa. (This had a funny side with the N1H1 outbreak last year, when it was claimed on radio that everyone SOY was safe because the only cases were NOY!! Heh. They may not socialise but they sure as hell cross the river in both directions to work! Apparently influenza can't cross water was the theory... raising the question of how it got here from Mexico.) One major inner city suburb which breaks this rule is Richmond, which is pretty much Middle of the Yarra (MOY) as the Yarra loops around the entire suburb on the north and eastern sides. We'd been walking on the other bank from Richmond since Punt Rd, and were now walking in Richmond/Burnley and would continue to do so for quite some time.
We crossed Swan St to find that the actual Yarra trail had been closed for repairs and we were going to be walking along the footpath. The road was still fantastic, and cyclists were still cruising happily along it. I realised why it was such a good and quiet road when we passed Melbourne Girls College - obviously it's a bit busier on school days!
Crossing Bridge Rd - which I recognised from (a) the tram and (b) the hotel that my in-laws like to stay in in Melbourne - we rejoined the actual trail and made our way north to Victoria St where we encountered our first set of stairs. Yes, the bicycle trail has stairs. It's obviously been a while since I rode this bit of it though because where previously you had to climb the stairs while wheeling your bike up via a groove on the side, they'd now put in an actual ramp to get you up to Victoria St. We ignored the ramp in favour of using different muscles for a bit (and avoiding cyclists coming down!) and climbed the stairs.
The trail continued on a bit past more very nice real estate and then emerged again on Victoria St, this time on the other side of IKEA.
"I'm lost."
"IKEA's there." I pointed. "That side's Kew, this side's Richmond. Still."
The trail crossed the river into Kew, and headed back down to the river's edge for a bit before re-crossing again into Abbotsford. A little further on and we'd reached the children's farm, which was obvious from the cow being lead down to the petting part of the farm. We also passed some sheep and some quite chuffed children. Oh and finally we'd found some toilets, so we had a quick break.
The former convent on the west side of the farm is also a lovely building to look at - a 3 storey very European building, which is quite obviously a convent. My architectural knowledge is very limited - I'm stuck as to what style it's in or anything useful to describe it, so go have a look here and see what I mean. It's a different style to most Australian buildings.
From here the trail reached Dights Falls, which is the furthest navigable point by boat up the Yarra from the sea. Once there were falls, but over the course of European settlement they'd put in a weir (lowers the flood risk) and there was also a flour mill there for quite a long period. There's ruins of the causeway for the mill, and a bit of the building left. There was also an Aboriginal school on the site, no buildings left from that though.
Crossing the Yarra again we walked up the Capital City trail before diverging up past the Thomas Embling Psychiatric Hospital to go to the Fairfield Boathouse. This was our planned stop, not least so Priscilla and I could have a capucchino. We carried our coffees down to tables near the water and watched the inept rowing as families attempted to take to the water. Fortunately the boathouse insists everyone wear life jackets when they hire a boat!
Refreshed we continued back up to Heidelberg Rd before rejoining the trail at Merri Creek. The Merri Creek part of the trail has definitely been upgraded since I last was on it - at this point it used to wander confusingly through the backstreets before rejoining the creek. Now the backstreets route has been designated a "flood route" and the trail walks right on the edge of the creek, crossing it several times. Even a couple of weeks after the rain the creek was still higher than normal - you could see why having a flood route would be a necessity!
At Rushall station we turned off the Merri Creek trail and started to head north-west on what used to be a rail line. This line went from the CBD to Edinburgh Gardens in North Fitzroy originally via North Melbourne and Flemington. There was provision made for it to join up with the Epping and Hurstbridge lines via the route we were now walking on, but it was decommissioned and torn up. Which is annoying, because it would be useful to have a damn inner city circle line about now! Still, it is a very nice bike/walking trail. You can see where the lines were every time you cross a major north/south road - it's the only part they didn't bother pulling up.
All of this area was my local area in undergraduate, so I was happily pointing things out and chattering about the history of the place to the other three. The most amusing part was when we reached Hardy-Gallagher reserve. All the houses facing the reserve had protest banners up in their front windows. Apparently there's a major confrontation going on at the moment over a council proposal to turn some of the reserve into a community garden. We were wondering about the signs as we crossed an unusually busy Bowen St into Princes Park which is all of about 20m away from the reserve and quite large actually.
The traffic on Bowen St turned out to be because they were doing track-works on the Sydney Rd tram line. This also meant that we were diverted off the old rail trail, and up via Brunswick St to cross Sydney Rd. We rejoined the Capital City trail, which was now following the Upfield Bike Path from The Avenue, and made our way down to Royal Park station, next to the zoo. The zoo was quite busy - and again, it's been a while since I was there. There's an entirely new car park that's been built for starters. We followed the bike path as it headed towards Jeff's Erection, the bright yellow angled sculpture thing next to the bright red anti-alien aircraft things along City Link. I'm sure they have a name but I've no idea what it is. Jeff's Erection - named after the state Premier of the time - appears to be the name that stuck.
At this point I had to apologise to everyone. When I'd suggested this trail I'd said that the first part was definitely paved, but that there was a variety of surfaces further on. It turned out that what had been a gravel track the last time I'd ridden it had now been upgraded to a paved trail, and we'd been walking on hard surfaces for quite a while now. Who'd have thought the council would actually have finished the upgrade? Just because they'd been talking about it 5 years ago didn't mean they'd actually have done it! The other part of the upgrade (which I was very grateful for!) was that they'd finally put a bridge over Manningham St and Mt Alexander Rd to Flemington Bridge station. Previously you got to screech to a sudden halt, carry your bike down two flights of stairs, cross two major roads very carefully and then continue. I like the bridge much better.
The Capital Trail came down a ramp from Flemington Bridge station and now joined the Moonee Ponds Creek trail. This was a very different side of Melbourne - from the pricey real estate of the eastern suburbs, to the fields of the convent, then more former blue collar workers terrace houses but now expensive inner city desirable housing of North Fitzroy and Carlton and the openess of Royal Park we'd passed into the still industrial suburbs of Flemington and North Melbourne. The Moonee Ponds creek at this point also looks like a drain, and the entire trail follows underneath the CityLink freeway. On the positive side, at least we were shaded from the sun a bit!
We passed a tent shelter set up under the freeway, presumably someone's home. The housing commission flats towered off to one side of us as the trail went under the major roads - there were water markers on the sides, and warnings not to enter the underpass if it was raining. Occasionally the creek would look vaguely creek-ish - there were ducks and weeds at one point, and probably fish as well - before returning to the concreted drain. Above us the traffic thundered on, while we kept on limping towards the western side of the CBD.
Finally we were passing the North Melbourne rail yards, and then the trail had reached the outskirts of Docklands. The last time I'd ridden it I'd lost the trail at at this point due to poor signage. Naturally this was the one thing that hadn't changed - it was really not obvious which way we were supposed to go at all. Fortunately Georgina, Priscilla and Karena had done the 14km Run for the Kids the week before and decided to follow the route that race had taken. So we headed in past Harbour City (dead quiet, even with a tourist bus there), the broken wheel (ditto) and the new ice skating centre (busier, mostly with young girls wearing pink) before emerging finally on to a part of Docklands that I recognised from Dean's dragon boat race. We followed the water around to Harbourside drive, past the Telstra stadium (or whatever it's called at the moment) and down to the Yarra crossing at the new bridge. On the other side of the bridge the trail vanished again due to construction works, and so we found ourselves detouring around South Wharf, finally emerging near the Polly Woodside. Which is obviously never going anywhere again, as she's now completely built in.
Past Jeff's Shed (same Premier - the actual name of the building is the Exhibition Building), and along Southbank - and suddenly there were hordes of people and many marquee tents. We'd managed to land in the middle of the wine and food festival weekend, and a large part of Melbourne had apparently come down to taste various foods and wine and bask in the sunshine. The crowds were so thick we resorted to walking inside the shopping centre, where it was quieter. Finally we arrived back at Princes Bridge, having walked somewhere around 32km (my guesstimate anyway). So not as long a walk as we'd planned, but still. The other three headed off to find their cars while I walked back up to Flinders St station to get home. Where I promptly discovered that the machines won't give you more than $10 change, which is freaking ridiculous. Fortunately I managed to line up, get a ticket and catch the train without too much hassle - I would have been annoyed had I missed that train! (Second freaking ridiculous thing: the machines they use to print out the tickets do One. Ticket. At. A. Time. About that quickly too.) The route we took is here.
Then I checked my e-mail.
DSE were doing planned burn offs along our proposed route. CP0-1 was fine, there was an active fire on the track between CP1 and 2, two fires in the vicinity of CP3 and three between CP3 and 4.
Bugger.
Some frantic e-mailing later and we agreed to walk the Capital City Trail, which runs in a loop around inner Melbourne. Shorter than we'd planned (about 32km), but still a decent sized walk. Not that the Bicycle Victoria website could agree on how long it actually was, giving us two different figures which varied by 3km. Never mind.
So we met at Princes Bridge at the slightly later time of 7.30am, and headed off east along the south bank of the Yarra river. 7.30am is prime time for rowers apparently, and lots of crews were out training. We dodged their cycling coaches - I'm always impressed they manage to cycle, talk into a microphone, not look where they're going and not fall in the Yarra - and headed toward Punt Rd. The track along here was dirt, which was nice. Up past Chapel St - fairly quiet this time of morning - and then on to the loop skirting Herring Island on the edge of Como park. Some tennis players in the park and quite a few joggers on the trail with us, but a lot fewer cyclists than I'd been expecting.
About this time we realised why the Bicycle Victoria website might have two different figures - there are trails on both sides of the river, and the southern side actually is longer because of the nature of the loops. It's also less well maintained - we were onto breaking asphalt at this stage - and less popular than the northern side, which had far more cyclists heading on the boardwalk trail under Citylink.
Continuing along the loops we admired the real estate of South Yarra we were passing, before crossing the Yarra to join the northern bank trail at MacRobertson Bridge. The trail veered off from Citylink to join Yarra Boulevard in Richmond and we continued on, this time admiring the extremely pricey riverside real estate of Toorak before passing the Gardiner's Creek Trail turn off and starting to head north again. This part of the trail had more cyclists, none of whom were actually riding on the trail - Yarra Boulevard is a fantastic cycling road, with bugger all cars on the weekend, so pretty much everyone was taking advantage of it. Georgina, who does a lot of cycling, was surprised that she'd never heard of this road before and is now planning to come in and do it again by bike. Round past sporting fields, continuing along the Boulevard.
"Which suburb are we in?"
"Over the river is Hawthorn. This side of the river is Richmond or Burnley."
Inner city Melbourne is commonly divided into two parts, North of the Yarra (NOY) and South of the Yarra (SOY). Traditionally speaking there is little interaction between these two parts - if you live in St Kilda (SOY) you tend to socialise in St Kilda, and if you live in Fitzroy (NOY) you tend to socialise there. North doesn't come south and vice versa. (This had a funny side with the N1H1 outbreak last year, when it was claimed on radio that everyone SOY was safe because the only cases were NOY!! Heh. They may not socialise but they sure as hell cross the river in both directions to work! Apparently influenza can't cross water was the theory... raising the question of how it got here from Mexico.) One major inner city suburb which breaks this rule is Richmond, which is pretty much Middle of the Yarra (MOY) as the Yarra loops around the entire suburb on the north and eastern sides. We'd been walking on the other bank from Richmond since Punt Rd, and were now walking in Richmond/Burnley and would continue to do so for quite some time.
We crossed Swan St to find that the actual Yarra trail had been closed for repairs and we were going to be walking along the footpath. The road was still fantastic, and cyclists were still cruising happily along it. I realised why it was such a good and quiet road when we passed Melbourne Girls College - obviously it's a bit busier on school days!
Crossing Bridge Rd - which I recognised from (a) the tram and (b) the hotel that my in-laws like to stay in in Melbourne - we rejoined the actual trail and made our way north to Victoria St where we encountered our first set of stairs. Yes, the bicycle trail has stairs. It's obviously been a while since I rode this bit of it though because where previously you had to climb the stairs while wheeling your bike up via a groove on the side, they'd now put in an actual ramp to get you up to Victoria St. We ignored the ramp in favour of using different muscles for a bit (and avoiding cyclists coming down!) and climbed the stairs.
The trail continued on a bit past more very nice real estate and then emerged again on Victoria St, this time on the other side of IKEA.
"I'm lost."
"IKEA's there." I pointed. "That side's Kew, this side's Richmond. Still."
The trail crossed the river into Kew, and headed back down to the river's edge for a bit before re-crossing again into Abbotsford. A little further on and we'd reached the children's farm, which was obvious from the cow being lead down to the petting part of the farm. We also passed some sheep and some quite chuffed children. Oh and finally we'd found some toilets, so we had a quick break.
The former convent on the west side of the farm is also a lovely building to look at - a 3 storey very European building, which is quite obviously a convent. My architectural knowledge is very limited - I'm stuck as to what style it's in or anything useful to describe it, so go have a look here and see what I mean. It's a different style to most Australian buildings.
From here the trail reached Dights Falls, which is the furthest navigable point by boat up the Yarra from the sea. Once there were falls, but over the course of European settlement they'd put in a weir (lowers the flood risk) and there was also a flour mill there for quite a long period. There's ruins of the causeway for the mill, and a bit of the building left. There was also an Aboriginal school on the site, no buildings left from that though.
Crossing the Yarra again we walked up the Capital City trail before diverging up past the Thomas Embling Psychiatric Hospital to go to the Fairfield Boathouse. This was our planned stop, not least so Priscilla and I could have a capucchino. We carried our coffees down to tables near the water and watched the inept rowing as families attempted to take to the water. Fortunately the boathouse insists everyone wear life jackets when they hire a boat!
Refreshed we continued back up to Heidelberg Rd before rejoining the trail at Merri Creek. The Merri Creek part of the trail has definitely been upgraded since I last was on it - at this point it used to wander confusingly through the backstreets before rejoining the creek. Now the backstreets route has been designated a "flood route" and the trail walks right on the edge of the creek, crossing it several times. Even a couple of weeks after the rain the creek was still higher than normal - you could see why having a flood route would be a necessity!
At Rushall station we turned off the Merri Creek trail and started to head north-west on what used to be a rail line. This line went from the CBD to Edinburgh Gardens in North Fitzroy originally via North Melbourne and Flemington. There was provision made for it to join up with the Epping and Hurstbridge lines via the route we were now walking on, but it was decommissioned and torn up. Which is annoying, because it would be useful to have a damn inner city circle line about now! Still, it is a very nice bike/walking trail. You can see where the lines were every time you cross a major north/south road - it's the only part they didn't bother pulling up.
All of this area was my local area in undergraduate, so I was happily pointing things out and chattering about the history of the place to the other three. The most amusing part was when we reached Hardy-Gallagher reserve. All the houses facing the reserve had protest banners up in their front windows. Apparently there's a major confrontation going on at the moment over a council proposal to turn some of the reserve into a community garden. We were wondering about the signs as we crossed an unusually busy Bowen St into Princes Park which is all of about 20m away from the reserve and quite large actually.
The traffic on Bowen St turned out to be because they were doing track-works on the Sydney Rd tram line. This also meant that we were diverted off the old rail trail, and up via Brunswick St to cross Sydney Rd. We rejoined the Capital City trail, which was now following the Upfield Bike Path from The Avenue, and made our way down to Royal Park station, next to the zoo. The zoo was quite busy - and again, it's been a while since I was there. There's an entirely new car park that's been built for starters. We followed the bike path as it headed towards Jeff's Erection, the bright yellow angled sculpture thing next to the bright red anti-alien aircraft things along City Link. I'm sure they have a name but I've no idea what it is. Jeff's Erection - named after the state Premier of the time - appears to be the name that stuck.
At this point I had to apologise to everyone. When I'd suggested this trail I'd said that the first part was definitely paved, but that there was a variety of surfaces further on. It turned out that what had been a gravel track the last time I'd ridden it had now been upgraded to a paved trail, and we'd been walking on hard surfaces for quite a while now. Who'd have thought the council would actually have finished the upgrade? Just because they'd been talking about it 5 years ago didn't mean they'd actually have done it! The other part of the upgrade (which I was very grateful for!) was that they'd finally put a bridge over Manningham St and Mt Alexander Rd to Flemington Bridge station. Previously you got to screech to a sudden halt, carry your bike down two flights of stairs, cross two major roads very carefully and then continue. I like the bridge much better.
The Capital Trail came down a ramp from Flemington Bridge station and now joined the Moonee Ponds Creek trail. This was a very different side of Melbourne - from the pricey real estate of the eastern suburbs, to the fields of the convent, then more former blue collar workers terrace houses but now expensive inner city desirable housing of North Fitzroy and Carlton and the openess of Royal Park we'd passed into the still industrial suburbs of Flemington and North Melbourne. The Moonee Ponds creek at this point also looks like a drain, and the entire trail follows underneath the CityLink freeway. On the positive side, at least we were shaded from the sun a bit!
We passed a tent shelter set up under the freeway, presumably someone's home. The housing commission flats towered off to one side of us as the trail went under the major roads - there were water markers on the sides, and warnings not to enter the underpass if it was raining. Occasionally the creek would look vaguely creek-ish - there were ducks and weeds at one point, and probably fish as well - before returning to the concreted drain. Above us the traffic thundered on, while we kept on limping towards the western side of the CBD.
Finally we were passing the North Melbourne rail yards, and then the trail had reached the outskirts of Docklands. The last time I'd ridden it I'd lost the trail at at this point due to poor signage. Naturally this was the one thing that hadn't changed - it was really not obvious which way we were supposed to go at all. Fortunately Georgina, Priscilla and Karena had done the 14km Run for the Kids the week before and decided to follow the route that race had taken. So we headed in past Harbour City (dead quiet, even with a tourist bus there), the broken wheel (ditto) and the new ice skating centre (busier, mostly with young girls wearing pink) before emerging finally on to a part of Docklands that I recognised from Dean's dragon boat race. We followed the water around to Harbourside drive, past the Telstra stadium (or whatever it's called at the moment) and down to the Yarra crossing at the new bridge. On the other side of the bridge the trail vanished again due to construction works, and so we found ourselves detouring around South Wharf, finally emerging near the Polly Woodside. Which is obviously never going anywhere again, as she's now completely built in.
Past Jeff's Shed (same Premier - the actual name of the building is the Exhibition Building), and along Southbank - and suddenly there were hordes of people and many marquee tents. We'd managed to land in the middle of the wine and food festival weekend, and a large part of Melbourne had apparently come down to taste various foods and wine and bask in the sunshine. The crowds were so thick we resorted to walking inside the shopping centre, where it was quieter. Finally we arrived back at Princes Bridge, having walked somewhere around 32km (my guesstimate anyway). So not as long a walk as we'd planned, but still. The other three headed off to find their cars while I walked back up to Flinders St station to get home. Where I promptly discovered that the machines won't give you more than $10 change, which is freaking ridiculous. Fortunately I managed to line up, get a ticket and catch the train without too much hassle - I would have been annoyed had I missed that train! (Second freaking ridiculous thing: the machines they use to print out the tickets do One. Ticket. At. A. Time. About that quickly too.) The route we took is here.
