Original article: Well, it’s not the most interesting news in the world, but apparently Dight’s Falls is to be rebuilt so that it looks just the same. Apparently they’re going to have a public consulation. They’re going to make an even better fish ladder to help little fishies, and eels to get over the big bump. Did you know that the eels that live in the Yarra can actually get out, walk around the falls, and get back in? That’s what the web says. What I’d like are some stepping stones across the top so you can walk over it safely. Anyone else?

Now this is what I call a great inovation: Bikely.  It plots bike paths, and users’ favourite on-road bike routes, on a street directory, and lets you look at the map in three views: standard street directory, Google world satellite imagery, or the latter with key roads superimposed (‘hybrid view’). Check out the 10 km loop taking in the Yarra Boulevard here, for example, and the instructions here.  All Abbotsford routes here.  The first hyperlink in this post are to all Victorian routes — 1616 of them. It also has running routes, which must also be walking routes.  It will be interesting to see whether it is possible to put links to Flickr images in the instructions. Maybe one day I’ll finish this blog’s first ever post, and plot the King Walk from the Carringbush to Dights Falls on the site as a running route. The beautiful photo is courtesy of A J Shcroetlin of Colorado.  Leave a comment if you think this site is as great as I do.

Dale Phillip Ward, formerly of Nicholson St, Abbotsford, fell into difficulties when his brother was convicted of murder, and committed suicide in jail in a drug overdose. His brother’s girlfriend was murdered too, her dismembered body dumped into the lake at Monash University. Ward used dope, amphetamines, ecstasy and ice, and developed a drug induced psychosis. Almost 2 years ago, in 2005, he stabbed Alex Cooper four times in the chest and once in the arm and killed him. He was charged with manslaughter and other offences from what the Herald Sun describes as “a crime spree”, and pleaded guilty. Sounds awfully like a plea bargain to me.  Update,  29 April  2007: more stabbings at more public housing estates.

The victim, a father of three, arrived in Perry St at the Dight Street public housing estate with a yellow racer he had just stolen. Ward’s half brother offered to buy it but the victim refused. So the half brother, then on methadone following a heroin addiction, put a knife to the victim’s throat, and there was a scuffle. Ward intervened by plunging the knife repeatedly, for which Justice Betty King — who moved on today to Carl Williams — gave him 8 with a minimum of 6. Whelan was jailed for 9 months for intentionally causing serious injury in an earlier hearing.

All in all, a sad story. I went for a walk around that area the other evening. There is great and grim ugliness in the block between Wellington St and Smith St.

All this is from The Age, story here, and the Herald Sun: story here. Previous posts here and here. Thanks to an American, Mo Riza, for the excellent snap.

Pappas once earned $15,000 a month ranked second on the international skating circuit, but he said that at 13 he was smoking marijuana “flat out” every day, first used coke at 15, was a regular user two years later, and by 18 it was “part of my diet”. In 1999, when he was 21, the County Court confiscated his passport for 3 years for smuggling 100g of the stuff into Australia in his shoe.

A small patch of blood, which may or may not be his, and a message scratched into concrete were found at Victoria Harbour, near where his corpse was dragged from the water in the vicinity of where a skating exhibition had been found 3 days earlier: “Love u LL” “Mum” Nan”. The media buzz is that it was a suicide. An autopsy revealed an absence of trauma, consistent with suicide.

His wallet floated to the surface. A passer-by handed it in to the police. The desk jockey linked the name with the alert for the search for the person of interest. The water police motored down to the Harbour and fished out the corpse in a very low key exercise.

According to The Hun, Pappas had a “history of violence” against Phillips, who had an intervention order out against him.

Did you hear? At 2 p.m. yesterday, a walker found a woman’s corpse wrapped in a blue sheet, weighed down by a large backpack full of weights. It was resting against the concrete barrier over which Dights Falls flow. We will know who it was soon enough: she had “Reggie” and “Elsie” tatts adorning her two wrists, and a gold navel stud, but the body has been in the water long enough for police to venture only that it appears to be a caucasian corpse. Keep you posted.

Update: the woman was 27 year old Balaclava woman Lynette Phillips. Her family is from the country. According to Sky News Online, she was a former heroin addict studying drug counselling at Swinburne University, and last seen in her flat on Monday. She is pictured in this Age article. Something I read suggested that the corpse is thought to have been dumped in the Merri Creek at Northcote.

But who was the walker? Abbotsford Blog wants to hear from you.

The other way Dights Falls have been making the news recently is in the government’s contemplation of the possibility of diverting “after-storms water” at Dights Falls and storing it in underground acquifers or in Yan Yean or Sugarloaf Reservoirs. By the end of the year, we will know whether Melbournians are set to drink Yarra River water from close to the centre of the city.

The Sketchbook tells us:

“Dights Falls, a natural rock barrier across the Yarra River are named for a pioneer settler, John Dight, although they were first seen by John Grimes, the original explorer of the Yarra, in 1803. Grimes sailed up the Yarra from its mouth at the head of Port Phillip Bay, but went no further than the falls which blocked his passage.

Dight, a flour miller, saw the potential of the falls which he believed could be utilised by harnessing the river to his purposes. He erected a flour mill and millrace nearby. His project was dogged by trouble. The Yarra fluctuates greatly from season to season, and even from day to day. Unlike the reliable English millstreams, with which DIght was familiar, the Yarra River can be a capricious, not to say rebellious servant.

When he sought to import steam-powered milling machinery from England to supplement the uncertain supply of waterpower, he was again unlucky, fo rhte ship carrying the machinery was wrecked en route to Melbourne.

When a second shipment did finally arrive, the colony’s trade was adversely affected by a depression. As if this weren’t enough, the mill was seriously damaged by fire, though after repairs it operated for a time before a second and larger fire destroyed the mill completely. It is not surprising that this succession of disasters convinced Dight and others that the falls had a very limited potential for industrial use.

The falls still serve as a natural barrier to the movement of traffic, and in earlier times they were certainly a major factor in limiting expansion upstream. Had they not existed, the Yarr might have become a highway enabling people to move inland until stopped by the greater barrier of the ranges.”

Given how big and successful Bicycle Victoria is, how popular cycling is becoming in Victoria, and how many fantastic bike paths there are, the signage of bikepaths, and their ease of use is astonishingly bad. For a long time after moving into Abbotsford, I remained confused about which of the two possible ways to proceed in order to get to the city, starting from the Walmer St bridge near Victoria Gardens or the Gipps St bridge. The thing is that to get to the city from there, you have to go in the opposite direction from the city, via Hawthorn, before looping back with the Yarra towards the city. Very counter-intuitive.

But is there a sign at either one saying “City this way” (or “Dights Falls this way” or “Merri Creek path and CERES 1.5 km this way” or “Abbotsford Convent next exit”)? No. There should be a coloured line painted on the bike path so you can just follow that, just like in a hospital, all the way to the end. Furthermore, there should be little paper maps freely available. I have tried to ride the Capital City Trail, but when I go through the Royal Park station near the Zoo I have no idea where to go next. All this is why this site is a useful thing.

Thanks to Amy Walters for bringing it to my attention. The beautiful photo is courtesy of A J Shcroetlin of Colorado.

Having just spent a few days in Amsterdam, I con confirm the truth of the descriptions of the place in this treatment of the announcement in The Age. There are multistorey bike parks like Melbourne car parks there. The dedicated bike lanes means no one has to wear helmets. There are many bicycles designed for carrying substantial loads, what one might call bike utes, and kids ride regularly in their wheelbarrow like trays.

How the replacement of the stps can possibly cost $1.5 million is something I would be very interested to know. Another fascinating question is how it could have been considered a good idea for the teachers’ union’s Mary Bluett and the Police Union’s Paul Mullett to come out with the public criticism that the money could be better put towards (gosh what could it be?), yep, teachers, and police. Links:Bicycle Victoria: Yarra City Council – Yarra Trail behind CUB brewery

YarraBUG (bicycle users’ group) leaflet

Yarra Bug Campaign Review

Main Yarra Bike Path

Capital City Trail: map and detailed directions

On my twirls along Yarra Boulevard this morning, I found out about Yarra BUG, a kind of community cell of Bicycle Victoria folks from Abbotsford, Alphington, Burnley, North Carlton, Clifton Hill, Cremorne, Collingwood, Fairfield, Fitzroy, North Fitzroy, Princes Hill and Richmond. They are leading the campaign for the removal of the Gipps St steps, those dreadful steps which cyclists and walkers need to descend from Gipps St heading away from the city and towards the Convent, the Children’s Farm, and Dights Falls. People coming from any of those places and heading towards the Botanic Gardens and the City, nead to dismount and push their bikes up little concrete channels next to the stairs.

The BUG is in the process of incorporating. Until then, membership is free. They are increasing the number of social rides they arrange, the next one being from Dights Falls to the Docklands. They meet at 7.30 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month at Suede (284 Smith St). The contact is Chris on 0407 825 467. To sign up to their newsgroup, send an email to yarrabug-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Their website (set up as a WordPress blog like this one incidentally) is a treasure trove of information. Who would have thought that the Celluloid Cycles Film Festival was coming up on 6-9 April? I learnt to my dismay that I had already tired myself out too much too early to join today’s World Naked Bike Ride (and its afterparty at a secret location). Damn.

Thanks go to Jim Skia of Rio de Janeiro for the magnificent photo.

You are in a beautiful part of Studley Park called F.A. Andrews Reserve, where there is a public toilet according to the National Public Toilet Map. Once there, you may see something like the first photo, particularly if you wear glasses and smear them with Vaseline around the edges, or are misty eyed by melancholy. It is the chimney of the Carlton & United Breweries.

Across the bridge, you bear off to the left towards this gate:

This is the view across the river towards the bike path leading to the Abbotsford Convent, and then to the Collingwood Children’s Farm:

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