Riding into town from North Sydney is an interesting affair as you take a different route going into town from the one coming back. When going into town, you have to go down a rather steep and nasty bit of footpath beside a church, and someone has thoughtfully put this warning sign up. The 'go-slow' idea is a good one here. About the only time I would ever advise someone on two wheels to use the brakes.
The problem is not the steepness of the path, although it is quite steep and the runout at the bottom is disastrous - it's the metal covers that some idiot has put over some inspection holes of some sort. I've ridden over these metal covers in the wet, and they are absolute death traps. Sheets of black ice would be less slipery. You have to crawl down the hill and then release the brakes when crossing them - otherwise the wheels go into an uncontrollable slide and they can go out from under you sideways. Nasty, nasty, nasty.
Here's an office block being converted to apartments. Kind of looks like Beirut at this point. Close up, it looks even worse. They've just hacked the fascia off the concrete and it really looks like a few bombs have done the work. Next time you see a photo of a 'blown up' building in Iraq or Lebanon, just think of this building in North Sydney. The damage might be a result of the building being revamped by developers. Things are not what they seem.
Not the best thing to happen on Saturday afternoon - car breaks down and leaves you sitting on the grass, phoning people and trying to arrange a lift. That's the girl sitting on her bum on the far right of the photo.
This bowling club has the best view if you ask me. I think the club is now defunct though. The grass looked brown and uncut from above. I guess the club has gone belly up and developers are now fighting with the council about what they can replace it with. Knowing what our councils are like, the fight will still be going on when I retire. This site will be a pristine bit of reclaimed bush in 10 years time.
A good view of the bridge. The nice thing about looking at it from here is that there is no prison type fence topped with barbed wire on the right. In some parts of the path, the wire stretches out from both sides and doesn't leave much of a gap overhead. It's like riding through a concentration camp.
Another nice view, with the ANZAC bridge way off in the distance.
I'm not sure what is being demolished here, but I always think its a hoot when you see a bulldozer or excavator of some sort on the roof of a building.
The building with the glass roof is a swimming pool. I used to swim here a lot when I lived on the north shore. It's a great pool. Bugger of a thing to get to, but worth it to have a swim underneath the harbour bridge. I swam there in the rain a few times (the big pool is in the open air) and it was quite spooky looking up at the bridge as I turned at the end of each lap, as the bridge was wreathed in mist. Unlike today. The only mist was the evaporating sweat from my back.
Off in the distance, there is a mass of newly delivered white cars glinting in the sun on the docks under the ANZAC bridge. Whenever I get into riding and read about what a growing activity it is, I ride over that bridge and look down and see another car carrier pulled up at the wharf dropping off another huge load of shiny new cars. People love their cars a lot. I like mine a lot, but it is good to get out of it on a regular basis and work off some of the junk food that has been consumed whilst driving it. I wonder if car seats are getting larger to accomodate larger bums?
I've been ripped off by this sandwich bar. Bad food and high prices.
This beamer has been sitting on the side of this street for months in this bashed up condition. It had a car cover over it, but it got ripped off in a recent storm. The rego runs out in Feb 2008. I wonder if they will manage to get it repaired by then?
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