Where's Wally?

On Sunday morning I had a bit of spre time, a large puppy and an awful sense of direction. Armed with them I wandered to Castlecrag. Original intention was to walk down Edinburgh road, the main road that runs down the spine of the peninsula that Castlecrag is built upon, to the end and then back again. To the north, or right hand side of the road, is a large escapment. Very pretty. To the left is...well...other stuff. Time to explore.

I walked a few streets with names such as "The Scarp" and "The Bulwark", eerily reminiscent of the new town road names of Milton Keynes. The architecture of the suburb is a bit of a hotch-potch, a mixture of old stock and new glas and concrete boxes. The one common factor - any proprty in Castlecrag costs a motza. I spoke with a local and asked if there were any bush tracks on this side of the peninsula and he pointed me in the right direction.

Very weird. The entrance to the bush track lookedlike a side entry to a house, but after a few metres it gave way to a skiny reserve that, when I reached the other end, popped out from an almost invisible gap right next to another house. Strange indeed. I wandered some more and eventually came to The Castelcrag Haven Amphitheatre. Very, very strange indeed. The plaque-blurb told me the place has ben there since the 1930s and from the power boxes and lights in the trees it looked as if it still got some use. Somewhat bemused, I took a couple of pictures and headed back home, via a coffee stop.

In the coffee shop I found a book called Building for Nature; Walter Burley Griffin and Castlecrag. Of course I had to buy it. Fascinating reading it is too. As Top Gear has just started on the tele I'm going to cut this short...but check this quote about Sydney. It is from Walter Burley Griffin in August 1922.

Instinct that has peopled all the shore heretofore, has been the pioneering instinct reckoning the exhuberence of nature an obstacle to be overcome, rather than a treasure to be preserved.

Our sordid environmentis the consequence of an egotism that hardly even questions wanton sacrifice to immediate personal - not social - advantage, of every vestige of the harmonious, perfect development which an intense evolutionary process through aeons has prepared for us.

That was in 1922. Smart bloke that Wally.