Walk 083 - Armadale's core

Date: 25th December
Distance: 2.68 kms
Locality: Armadale

Streets walked:

• Whitehead Street
• Hughes Road
• Prospect Road
• Third Road
• Thomas Street

Running street count: 1001
Running distance count: 344.50 kms

Christmas Day was pretty much ideal for walking the final few streets of the challenge and the centre of Armadale was a fitting place to do it.

With no traffic, only four streets needed to make 1000, and a gorgeous 28 degrees max, this was a cakewalk and very enjoyable. Loping around the town centre at slow speed and taking note of all the changes that've happened here in the last four decades (if the memory doesn't cheat) finished things off a treat. It's been a good year, I've seen more of my hometown than ever, and loved it.

There may be one more blog entry to come, summarising things. In the meantime, have a pic:

Walk 082 - Kelmscott Hills

Date: 20th December
Distance: 2.54 kms
Locality: Kelmscott

Streets walked:

• Bromfield Drive
• Rowley Street
• Howard Place
• Balgor Court
• Kundyl Court
• Anderson Place

Running street count: 996
Running distance count: 337.82 kms

As a kid riding around Kelmscott, no matter which type of bike you and your friends had, this set of streets (particularly Morrison which I didn't even attempt on this walk) rendered them futile; there was no option but to get off and push it uphill as best you could. This is steep country.

There are a lot of characterful homes around here trying to cling to the slopes to take best advantage of the views.

Just one of the many abandoned tennis courts of Kelmscott :(

Walk 081 - Sandy Sienna Wood

Date: 20th December
Distance: 1.68 kms
Locality: Hilbert

Streets walked:

• Heartwood Way
• Dalby Street
• Gisburn Street
• Bedgebury Road
• Parkhurst Avenue
• Eleventh Avenue

Running street count: 990
Running distance count: 335.28 km

This part of the Sienna Wood development is so new that some of the streets have yet to be created and not a single house has been started. An ideal traffic-less place to walk, really.

Once again the streets don't appear on the Runtastic app, but going to the City of Armadale's online mapping service shows the progress made on the estate up to September 2015 (see below). I can report that a lot more has been done since September, as the rest of the pics should show.

September's progress. How does it look three months hence? See below.

Now I know what the green stuff is for: to hold the sand down in high winds.

Walk 080 - Riva on Piara

Date: 17th December
Distance: 4.77 kms
Locality: Piara Waters

Streets walked:

• Torino Crescent
• Calais Lane
• Skeet Road
• Rodez Link
• Riva Entrance
• Sativa Lane
• Loseto Link
• Royan Lane
• Dijon Lane
• Solingen Lane
• Lanciano Lane
• St Tropez Gardens
• Monticello Parkway
• Mataro Link
• Passendale Crescent
• Villatella Gardens
• Novelli Parade
• Riviera Turn
• Calvera Gardens
• Terracina Parkway
• Albi Link
• Varazee Way
• Nitida Lane
• Ortona Lane
• Tordera Parkway
• Vichy Close
• Calamocha Way
• Aleria Way

Running street count: 984
Running distance count: 333.60 kms

This walk in the still-underway estate of Riva on Piara Waters was easy, enjoyable, and got me a lot closer to the 1000-road goal (28 added to the list). Three observations were reinforced over and over as I walked around during the late afternoon:

• Fake lawn (or to be generous, artificial turf) can get weeds in it. It was true when I last said it, it's still true now. All around its borders.
• A big concentration of our new Australians are living here; almost every person I said waved to or had a chat with was from the Asian continent or the sub-continent. I'm no expert in picking where folks are from, but there were many Sikhs, Indians (or perhaps Pakistanis or Bangladeshis) and Chinese people out in their local parks, watering plants out the front, doing some work on their freshly-constructed homes. Piara Waters and Harrisdale are the cutting edge of Multicultural Australia.
• There are some HUGE electricity pylons, the massive ones, running through the centre of this neighbourhood. Supposedly they can cause a number of health problems. I really hope not, or a lot of these residents are screwed.

Walk 079 - Blackwood

Date: 16th December
Distance: 2.92 kms
Locality: Mt Nasura

Streets walked:

• Blackwood Drive
• Nasura Grove
• Oberon Grove
• Vista Grove
• Westview Close
• Fisher Place
• Valencia Grove

Running street count: 956
Running distance count: 328.83 kms

In the final days of this walking challenge I feel far less inclined to nitpick, criticise or complain about the neighbourhoods I go through. Hence there's not much comment here about Mt Nasura except for the pic captions.

Shout-out to Oberon Grove and the old Wheeler homestead.

This rock is way bigger than the pic indicates. Cool thing to have in your street!

From the rock above, you can have views like this.

Mazzega Park, presumably of Mazzega's Mitre 10 fame (now closed).

Walk 078 - Tait leftovers

Date: 14th December
Distance: 2.60 kms
Locality: Seville Grove

Streets walked:

• Rupert Street
• May Close
• McKeown Court
• Peel Court
• Kootingal Road
• Burran Court
• Ives Place

Running street count: 949
Running distance count: 325.91 kms

Walk 077 - Kelmscott gap filler

Date: 10th December
Distance: 3.06 kms
Locality: Kelmscott

Streets walked:

• Arnott Court
• Rundle Street
• Stevington Road
• Ottaway Street
• Erica Street
• Ayton Road
• Armitage Road
• Dixie Road
• Foster Road

Running street count: 942
Running distance count: 323.31 kms


The section of Kelmscott around River Road and Armitage Road still has a bunch of historic properties, increasingly surrounded by freshly-built units and subdivided former big blocks.

Beautiful house.

The first time I've seen a City plaque on a house (like the UK's blue plaques).

Walk 076 - Piara Waters pt 4 (EuroStreets!)

Date: 8th December
Distance: 4.20 kms
Locality: Piara Waters

Streets walked:

• Munich Link
• Grenoble Street
• Tilburg Brace
• Dieppe Lane
• Bordeaux Parade
• Salerno Approach
• Berlin Lane
• Cologne Parkway
• Nice Lane
• Dortmund Gardens
• Essen Link
• Padua Road
• Brescia Lane
• Mannhein Crescent
• Delft Lane
• Napoli Avenue
• Plavin Street
• Yarloop Street
• Willowdale Promenade
• Claymore Place

Running street count: 933
Running distance count: 320.25 kms

This easy stroll around one of the City's newest residential areas included streets not even listed on Runtastic's maps, and as you can see on the screengrab above, none of the houses that stand on those streets appear on their satellite image. At any rate, it was good to be back on the flats, racking up a big number of streets in a short space of time and checking out the new neighbourhood.

I assume Delft Lane is named after Ron Van Delft, the CoA's first environmental officer.

Ad board for Mason Green.

300 square metre block. I have ranted about this.

Mason Green sales office over the road, next to the sand mountains.

Walk 075 - Roleystone pt 4 (Calytrix)

Date: 7th December
Distance: 4.06 kms
Locality: Roleystone

Streets walked:

• Garland Road
• Russelia Way
• Viola Place
• Sollya Court
• Calliandra Place
• Hawkstone Road
• Windsor Avenue
• Grevillea Avenue
• Leschenaultia Street
• Calytrix Road
• Athena Place
• Aristia Place

Running street count: 913
Running distance count: 316.05 kms

Of all the Roleystone walks, this one had the most spectacular views, matched by punishing gradients on the uphill sections. Worth the effort.

This can't count as public open space. Nowhere for us to play on a cliff-face :)

Walk 074 - Mt Nasura gap filler

Date: 2nd December
Distance: 1.87 kms
Locality: Mt Nasura

Streets walked:

• Chardonnay Grove
• Cabernet Court
• Henrietta Avenue
• Caroline Street

Running street count: 901
Running distance count: 311.99 kms


This short walk into Mt Nasura to tick off another few streets set a new level of minimum-returns (for the project, not for fitness), going up some of the steepest roads in the City of Armadale while adding only four streets to the total. I also missed two easy ones while I was at it, and walked a lot of Derry Avenue which was already on the list. Oh well, it can't all be easy pickings on the flats ... and now there's only 99 streets to go!

As usual in these parts, it's ex-winery country, with these slopes previously being the Derry NaSura vineyard back in the day. Hence Chardonnay Grove and Cabernet Court. Great views once again.

Walk 073 - Camillo gap fillers

Date: 1st December
Distance 1: 1.86 kms
Distance 2: 2.46 kms
Locality: Camillo

Streets walked:

• Sapling Way
• Elm Close
• Logpine Crescent
• Tall Karri Close
• Jarrah Close
• Tewson Road
• Ainsley Court
• Abdale Court
• Midhurst Street
• Culford Court
• Heron Court
• Shrike Court
• Selsdon Road
• Selsdon Court
• Dollis Way
• Gilbey Court

Running street count: 897
Running distance count: 310.12 kms

Two gap-filling walks around Camillo had me taking in some streets around Ypres Road and Grovelands Drive on the first morning of summer.

At the risk of including too many alleyway mentions in recent posts, I can report that I managed to get a snap of a closed alley ... out of the many that I've passed on these walks, this may be the first time one was photographed for the blog.

There's nowt sadder than a closed alleyway.

Gravel is easy and neat, but holds the heat dreadfully. Get some pot plants out there!

Walk 072 - Mt Nasura

Date: 30th November
Distance: 4.00 kms
Locality: Mt Nasura

Streets walked:

• Wangoola Terrace
• Angorra Road
• Kaloomba Street
• Binburra Way
• Mirria Way
• Bilkurra Way
• Carawatha Avenue
• Ophelia Grove
• Caradine Road
• Molong Street
• Wyong Place
• Barranduna Drive

Running street count: 881
Running distance count: 305.83 kms

Much like any hilly area in the district, walking Mt Nasura is hard on the calves and easy on the eyes. Great views are the reward. Angorra Road has a few empty blocks that still have vestiges of the vineyard terraces of the areas past as Derry NaSura. Subdivision started in the 1950s (Derry Avenue) with a big push of further subdivision in the late 1970s.

Back when I was at uni I delivered the junk mail to this area, which was one of the routes available (surprise surprise), as was Mt Richon. No-one enjoys tackling the hilly bits with a sack of advertising papers on their back, but it had its advantages ;)

Looking down Angorra Road towards Mt Richon.

Ophelia Grove, close to the Neerigen Brook.

At the bottom of Carawatha Avenue.

How things up there looked in 1912. Courtesy of Birtwistle Local Studies Library.

Walk 071 - Springtime in Haynes

Date: 29th November
Distance: 2.50 kms
Locality: Haynes

Streets walked:

• Boatwright Avenue
• Hack Lane
• Markwell Avenue
• Laverick Street
• Rickett Street
• Jordan Street
• Nesbit Drive
• Bristow Street
• Bright Street
• Dorset Street

Running street count: 869
Running distance count: 301.83 kms

Again this is a situation where Runtastic's maps aren't quite up-to-date with the rate of building in Armadale, which is going at a crazy pace. This development is called Springtime, and it has a suspiciously simple and traditional road layout with street names that are unpretentious (unusual as far these things go). At any rate, the image below gives a better idea of how it currently looks:

As with the other new estates in town the following points occur to me as I walk around:

• high energy vibe with lots of young families doing their thing
• the public open spaces look fantastic
• these public open areas are desperately needed because the properties have almost no yard space
• vehicles block the footpaths every few metres because the double garages are either full of stuff that would normally be in a shed (which these houses can't fit into the tiny backyards), or because everyone owns a massive Nissan Navara, Ford F250 or people-mover van which leaves bugger-all space to fit a second vehicle (and many houses have three cars)
• Lack of space on these blocks for new trees to grow and a lack of established trees means the estate is a giant heat-sink. To be fair, there weren't any established trees to keep...
• Artificial lawn can still get weeds in it.

Give it five years to settle in and Springtime will look tremendous (heck, it's already fairly nice). Give it 20 years and it could be nightmarish.We'll wait and see.