Made an early start today. Decided to do the long walk, the walk over in the direction of Broker’s Nose. Hoping to find that 4wd vehicle abandoned, bogged, whatever in the marshy creek. So up Mt Keira, then out north along Clive Bissel drive, with a small sidetrip to a nearby lookout, and plenty of stops at the various blocked water board exits, with their piles of dumped rubbish – bricks, asbestos, etc. – and on towards Mt Ousley Road, which can be heard from a long way off – a constant roar of trucks and cars. Getting close I came across the remnants of a crummy couch spread out on the side of the road, all conspicuously labelled with “Illegally Dumped” stickers. Nobody picks any of this stuff up. It just becomes a series of fake crime scenes, with not even a remote chance of catching the culprits.
Illegally dumped
The guy waiting for his coffee at the caravan truck stop on the corner of Clive Bissel Drive and Mt Ousley Road observed me curiously as I headed left to follow the traffic along the freeway. There is no way across the freeway itself. It is entirely pedestrian unfriendly, despite the existence of walking tracks on either side. Nothing connects them. The only way to get to the northern escarpment is to walk down the freeway to the Picton turn, go along there for a way and then turn back to Wollongong, which leads finally to an overpass to the other side. What could be thirty metres or so is turned into two kilometres or so of frightening walking at the edge of a major freeway. Don’t imagine that many people ever attempt this. Kept expecting to be crushed by a wayward truck or pulled over by the police. I could imagine the latter treating me as some dangerous vagrant, especially when they discovered the angle grinder in my pack. But nothing like this happened. In fact one person even pulled over to offer me a lift. Very nice of them.
Of course, having walked all that way, having finally found my way to the small creek crossing where the vehicle had been some months ago, I discovered that the 4wd was long gone. Not a trace of it in the muddy creek overflow. So I guess it may not have been genuinely abandoned. I took photographs of the empty scene. Then I noticed that the rear flap of the tray was sitting in the creek, repurposed now as a small bridge. I contemplating cutting out a portion of the tray, but thought better of it. Unlike the various other bits and pieces of illegally dumped cars, this thing lacked any sense of abject desolation. Instead it was serving a useful and ingenious purpose. If I’d cut one end off then it would no longer have reached properly across the creek and may have damaged the tires of some mountain bike (I suspected mountain bikers had made the bridge). So I left it there and began the walk back, regretting that I’d walked so far without managing to collect anything. I was also dreading the thought of having to retrace my path back along the freeway, but there was no other option so I just walked as quickly as possible.
The car was gone
Tray flap bridge
It was a relief to get back to the quiet of Clive Bissel Drive. I stopped to take a photograph of a pretty crop of roadside flowers.
Roadside flowers
Having missed out on my intended target I kept a vigilant eye open for traces of wrecked cars beside the road. Very luckily, I came across a a car door in a small clearing that was clearly convenient for illegal dumping activities. It looked in fairly good order and there was no sign of the larger vehicle it was once attached to. I’m not sure what it was doing there, but it meant that my day was not entirely wasted. I took some initial photographs, dragged the door further away from the road, took some more photographs and then carried the door down to a more hidden spot and cut out my usual square. The skin was in good condition so it took a bit longer than usual. The grinding blade wore down considerably. Then I had trouble lifting the cut piece from the car body frame. Some strange gummy stuff that holds the body work to the internal car frame was causing problems. A bit of twisting freed the square. I dragged the door back up the hill and took more photographs.
I had what I was after so just a matter of walking for a final hour or so home. But by now I was getting a bit leg weary, so I dropped my pace and dawdled. Finally got home around midday.
Car door panel
Moved further from the road
Cut out
Square