Walking with little Marion

This post is for Mandy

I’ve been walking, these past couple of Saturdays, along the Sturt Creek/drain, going from Oaklands Road, across Finniss Street and Marion Road and up as far as the exit on Sturt Road. There are some very interesting markers about the history of the area, and signs of people’s everyday lives going on, plus other walkers and bike riders. It’s kind of beautiful – the trees are lovely, and there are some sculptures and suburban parks that back onto the linear park too. However, it is blighted by the concrete drain effect – the whole thing was concreted and, well, utterly changed in the 1970s in order to prevent the creek from flooding, and thereby damaging the newly built houses and cutting road access etc. Sigh. It’s hard to imagine what it was like before – but after I mentioned it in last week’s post, Mandy, regular reader and sweetie, told me she had lived nearby as a child in the 1960s, and that she and her siblings would play by the creek after school at that time. Wow. She’s since returned to live in the same very street now.

I was hoping to find some old photos online of what it was like back in the day – but I can only find pics taken way back – interesting but really hard to imagine life then, fully, 100 years ago or more. Then there’s also a little video from you tube of people from the time talking about the old creek and the concreting that was done in the 1970s. If you look hard enough you can see a bit of a photo of the creek from before it was messed with in there too, with kids walking in it…

Anyway, there is a lot to miss about it as it was, but it is, in its own way, great to walk along now. The trees are beautiful. Here are some shots taken in the late afternoon last weekend and this one. I’ve included a tribute to ‘Pepper’ whoever that is, and to the lost cat Lionel, plus some ducks and views of the wetlands down the Oaklands end… and the long wall of graffiti that faces the river and backs onto some factory buildings or something like that. There was a guy there painting as I went by – don’t think you can see him very well. There’s also a sculpture of a turtle, some red autumn leaves, another statue called Little Marion Pondering, plus the trees the trees the trees (some a little on the dark side)…

I guess we make the best of what we’ve got, one way or another, and life goes on in all it’s sweet, everyday glory – cats and runners, trees and the drain, memories of old times, old people, different times and different values, and of us all now, making our mark, trying to make things better in our own way.