It was so cold today I wore a leather jacket under a woollen coat

Back to regular programming - things I've seen from a bus or car

One day I really need to get off the bus and go look at this from the other side

Great sunset today

Why don't houses look like this? I'd live here

RIP capsicums

Flour mill in Newport, it's abandoned (see more photos here). I have a lot of stories about this place but the shortest one is that I found a bag containing a handheld radio and a huge spanner wrapped in cloth stashed under some stairs - I obviously took it and the spanner is still in my car almost 10 years later

The sunset mentioned earlier but for some reason none of these images are in order. I'm fine with that

Newport with an edit

I've lived in Newport twice - first time being in 2008. The 'apartment' (as it was advertised) was part of a complex of four, clad in cream weatherboard over red brick. The building had a slight lean to it, and the wood had warped and rotted from the salty air. I'm almost certain it was an old boarding house for maritime, rail or oil industry employees (OK that part is mere speculation) because you'd open the front door into a long hallway that had 3 rooms off it, each lockable from the inside and with a louvred window into the hall. We were on the first floor which gave us a great view of the power station, and you could always tell how cold it was by the amount of steam escaping the stack.

There were three units downstairs, and one next door above a shop that faced onto Melbourne Rd. Below our kitchen was a tiny studio - the man who lived there had a lot of computers but they were all archaic beige boxes and CRT monitors, and the moth-eaten and yellowed curtains on the lone window were transparent so at night I'd always see him watching TV at a really low volume. The middle apartment was perpetually empty, and the last one was the home of a really old man who drank way too much, too often. He'd lose his keys at the pub up the road and then ask me to help break into his place through the kitchen window, which I was never game to do. I always wondered what the floorplans of the downstairs units were like and once, on a really hot day, the drunk left his front door wide open and you could see a shower, the molded plastic and moldy curtain kind, situated right across from the front door. Very weird. The whole block has since been demolished and replaced with townhouses (edit: I googled my old address and found this so I don't have to explain how ugly they are).

In 2010 we moved into the flat above the shop, which was in far better condition. It was nice but 2010 was a really awful year, and I would try to spend as much time outside of the house as possible, so I perfected a time-killing walk to Greenwich Bay, then north past the Warmies up to the old glass factory, then back home via Spotswood and Hall St. The events of 2010 made me dislike Newport immensely and I never visited again* until Boxing Day (my last day there coincided with the state election that was Brumby vs Baillieu) - I rescind my distaste and can now say Newport is alright

*edit: driving through on my way to Altona or Williamstown doesn't count but taking Millers Rd is way better than the hell that is Melbourne Rd, plus you get the opportunity to stop at Altona Gate Shopping Centre, which is great. Also I don't think of Newport Lakes as being in Newport for some reason, sorry

OK not Newport but I was getting coffee in Seddon and saw this giant group of seagulls which I think fly from the carpark of Sunshine Marketplace to somewhere near the beach (or river) every afternoon

Very slow moving barrel filtering something at the power station

What remains of the Newport Oil Wharf

This was empty and fenced off for a while but is now a dog park. Someone on the local buy/swap/sell group posted about a dog getting stuck in a rabbit warren here the other night

Crows in a tree

Looks like a railway crossing because it might've been - I think this is where the Holden Dock oil train used to run

Sewer outlet

OK on the other side of the road now - there was no footpath, just this remnant bit of kerb (curb?) which went for a few hundred meters

Box on the side of the road

Random patch of bluestone?

Concrete path to/from nowhere

Was once a giraffe

I took this photo on the drive home - I like unsealed roads in otherwise urbanised places, they are very humble, I hope they continue to exist for some time

Quarries

Visited a few quarries today (in their various forms). Shortly after we arrived at our first stop, I spotted a beaten old ute struggling to drive up the hillside of Solomon Heights - an unusual sign of human life in the area. I don't know if our presence caused them to drive away. 

We didn't stay for long on account of the weather, and as soon as we got back to the car, a clean silver 4WD ute came down the hill and drove over the footpath. The back tray held two dogs - a staffy, and an egg-headed bull terrier - chained to the rollcage. The driver jumped out, tested a fence separating the River Valley development from the quarry, and pushed it (probably to ascertain whether he could drive over it) reasonably close to the ground. He then hopped back into his car and reversed the whole way back up the hill. By this point, I also began to drive back up the hill and spotted him idling on an empty block of land. He then drove aggressively back down the hill, the car - dogs and all - violently lurching from side to side. I didn't see him after that.

I wonder who turned these concrete drainpipes into planters

I also wonder whether these drainpipes are related to the planter-pipes

I can't tell if the rusty cars were burnt or submerged (or both). 

I'm no geologist but the rock formation is nice. Reminds me of Organ Pipes park

Quarry beach

Soccer stadium on the hill

The above quarry links to this one. I think they filled it a few years ago.
You can see some revegetation on the quarry face closest to the street.

Not a quarry but I like this path (which will probably have houses on both sides one day)

West of Duke St. This quarry was earmarked for a shopping centre roughly ten years ago. As you can see, much progress has been made. 

If only I could live next to a giant hole in the ground

I don't think this quarry attracts as many hooligans. Seems a lot more quiet/clean

Substation box propped up with wood, very safe looking

Dead-end street I parked on, featuring giant tyre

Newport Lakes was decidedly more wholesome. Some kind of junior bush dancing competition was on, which seemed to result in a large number of kids being forcibly led away from the event by their parents (overheard: "You want freedom? Well those friends of yours..."). 

Man-made indentations in the land can end up looking surprisingly natural

This bird has bread in its foot

Mean cloud in the same colourway as my car

Stopping for groceries on the way back constituted the final quarry visit, in the form of Altona Gate shopping centre. The row of spaces I usually park in had a curb extended halfway through each space, essentially turning each spot into a square. I don't know if this was intentional but people kept parking there anyway, two squares to a car (and then I did it and by the time I got back from Coles everyone else had left, rendering me the only person to park like that which probably made a lot of people think I don't know how to park a car).

I'll actually park my car inside the "quarry" next time.

This looks so inviting

It actually goes another 2 levels below this