Date: 26th September 2015
Distance: 3.24 kms
Locality: Champion Lakes
Streets walked:
- Beetzee Way
- Melton Hill Lane
- Barrington Avenue
- Roudnice Lane
- Strathclyde Circuit
- Hazewinkel Gardens
- Rotsee Place
- Casitias Street
- Seine Mews
- Shuny Lane
- Thames Lane
- Dorney Espanade
- St Catherine's Promenade
- Carnegie Lane
- Regatte Boulevard
- Banyoles Circuit
- Bosbaan Place
Running street count: 475
Running distance count: 176.89 kms
Champion Lakes is Armadale's coastal suburb. Despite being nowhere near the coast it's very much the next best thing, sitting on the man-made shores of a world-class rowing facility. From this blog's perspective, it's a perfect place to easily rack up a high street-count, catch some rays and a gorgeous breeze, plus go through debates in one's mind about a few stuff-ups the planners didn't account for.
To save this post turning into a book, here are the good & bad points:
GOOD
- Underground power keeps things looking neat-o. A rarity in Armadale
- Huge lake with excellent walking / jogging / cycling paths surrounding it
- Some beautiful common areas with handy facilities
- People actually get out and enjoy the facilites - always family fun going on
- Dare I say, a better place to have than the salt lake and sandy bush that used to be there
- Laneways giving houses rear-access - good for many reasons
BAD
- Tiny block sizes that presage disaster in future decades as the car era fades and it becomes vital to grow one's own food. Very little LAND, all house...
- The estate will probably be a giant heat-sink when done. No houses have trees for shade. The homes' large floor-plans will need bulk air-con, pushing even more heat into the streets
- Right next to the busy Tonkin Highway (but no immediate access to or from)
- Cars line the already-narrow streets, because nobody actually uses their double garages for cars
- The lake itself is reportedly unusable for swimming
- No shops. Some form of corner store would be awesome here and they would make a fortune; in an estate ideal for walking, what better than a quick stroll to the local shop for stuff?
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| A small sample of just one of the common areas. Ducks love it. People love it. |
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| Good job there's a few nice open spaces here, the houses have none. |
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| Back lanes are a great move: moving house frontage forward to the street, adding a yesteryear character, excellent for walking. |
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| This shit is everywhere. When there's no room on a block for a real shed, families keep all their toys and bikes and shelving in the double garage, pushing cars into the streets. Plus what about 3 or 4-car families? |
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| One-third the size of a 1960s or 1970s block. Risky. |
On the whole, this is an estate of the times. Right now, and for the next decade, Champion Lakes will be a tasty place to live while the young families see their kids grow up and the retirees enjoy the lakeside lifestyle. I love the place.
The concern I have is that this sort of development is a future liability as energy prices rise, cars become less viable and the need for people to grow their own food takes hold. This was the reason for the quarter-acre block. Back then, it was a leftover habit that was informed by the depression years, plus the fact people liked to have their own bit of land to play with. It turned out that between the 1960s and the 1990s, cars became cheap and easy, supermarkets and malls emerged. The need to grow your own food disappeared. The need to be near the railway line or bus stop disappeared. Corner delis became passe as the big shops opened at weekends and in the evenings.
My view is that all these things (traveling by foot, bike or on public transport, gardening for sustenance, shade trees, keeping cool without burning tons of electricity) will become important again, within the next 20 years. That'll make me yearn for the old quarter-acre and not be so adamant that having a separate home-theatre room is a supreme necessity.
In the meantime though, there's little to gripe about. I'll be walking around Champion Lakes for the forseeable future while they still let me in :)
Date: 28th September 2015
