On the road again - again

Finally, I managed to wring a measly 34 kilometres out of my body today. That involved riding out to Homebush, stooging around a bit and then crossing the Parramatta River to have a look at Meadowbank (and to try and follow the route to Eastwood - wherever that is).

This photo is from the Olympic Park at Homebush. I have just noticed that there is not a single person in this shot. On a weekend, you'd expect maybe 50 - 100 people to be walking along here. The place was dead as can be today.

I took this photo for the paving. Architects seem to love laying down stupid paving bricks in fancy patterns. I have no problem with the use of pavers, but in this case, they have used pavers that leave a large gap between each brick. At each corner, there is a hole the size of a 10 cent piece.

I'm glad I don't wear stilletos. Women in heels would be totally unable to walk down this path. I hate it because riding over it is horrible - it's like riding over cobblestones. This is a park for kiddies and things - not the route of Paris-Roubais.



These next two photos show apartment constructions at Rhodes, which is just across the water from Homebush. Whenever I ride out this way, I always remember that these apartments are built on top of a toxic waste dump.



On the other side of this street, there are a row of these funny little houses. The houses look worse than crap. I don't know why the developer didn't snap these up and flatten them and drop another row of hideous apartments on the site. Then again, maybe that will be the next stage.



This photo shows the bike path that has been laid over the old railway bridge that crosses the Parramatta River (the new rail bridge is on the left). The old bridge has seen better days - it certainly hasn't seen a coat of paint in years (and I don't include the graffiti to the right).

Turning it into a bike bridge was pretty easy - they just laid some kind of fibre cement sheeting over the rail lines and nailed it down - if you look over the edges of the sheeting, you can still see the sleepers underneath (and the water down below).



I put this next photo in to show how wonderfully well bike paths are sign posted in Sydney. The yellow circle indicates the path - half hidden by untrimmed trees and completely lacking in signage. Well, there is a sign, but you only see it after you have ridden past the path - and if you happen to glance backwards to your right.



If any cyclist does in fact find their way onto the path, they'll pass over the traffic counter pictured below. The RTA or local council must have been hoping that zero bikes passed this way, giving them an excuse to further neglect this hidden infrastructure. I turned around a rode over it several times for good measure.



One thing that I do on these rides is look at property. Funny that just around the corner from home, I should find this abandoned house.



I can tell it's abandoned by the boarded up windows, the graffiti on the fence and the totally overgrown garden. It's interesting that even with really high house prices around here, a place is just left to go to hell like this. I would have thought that it would have been demolished and replaced with a McMansion by now.

I might have to check it out - spooky dead bodies and all that kind of thing.