Melbourne's Newest Station

It is of course Coolaroo on the Craigieburn line. For me this station has always been an enigma as it had always been marked as a future station in the Melway street directory. When the rail line between Broadmeadows and Craigieburn was electrified back in 2007 it was however ignored in favour of a station at Roxburgh Park instead (itself built on the site of the closed Somerton Station) Due to public demand the government finally built Coolaroo Station and it opened for business in June 2010. I stopped by on a sunny Sunday afternoon all the way back in August to take a look.

It surprised me that the landscaping was nice but simple. Also amazing was the fact that none of the plants had been pulled out! (also note the clearly marked and very well situated disable parking)

Nice big shiny letters and seats to sit on while waiting to get picked up. I would think the seat would be unusable on a hot summer afternoon as it faces due west. The metal would be scorching and the heat radiating off that wall unthinkable. I hope they keep the water up to that tree, it will be needed in the future. There are a number of these trees in this area out the front, they appear to be a native Sheoak/Casuarina, so should handle the conditions well.



This is one of the stairways. Disabled people are catered for by an elevator (you can just see the top of the door). Also a track for pushing bicycles up/down the stairs is provided



This is the city bound platform. It's pretty barren, but at least there are quite a few seats and some shady areas to wait under.



The passenger information display or PID on the city bound platform.



The Craigieburn platform. Pretty much the same deal as the other.



Station sign, and example of the building materials used. Very basic, some would say cheap.



Looking towards Craigieburn (Roxburgh Park is the next station though), and ultimately Sydney, Although with a change of gauge in Brisbane you could go on Mount Isa, Cairns, Kuranda and Forsayth. The interstate standard gauge is the track on the right.



A Siemens train approaches, bound for Flinders Street.





On each platform are some basic necessities for travel, including both Metcard and Myki vending machines and validators. There are also the usual posters showing maps, timetables and fare information.





A better view of the approach to platform 2 and the main station "building". The words plain and boxy come to mind.



The only design flourishes seem to be the red colouring on the stairs and a collection of words on the side of the overpass. And more Sheoak trees.



A close up of the interesting collection of "feel good" wording on the side of the overpass.



Interesting to see a water tank as well. It will be needed to keep those trees alive.



There is also a very large car park.



Just as I was leaving this V/Line sprinter bound for Seymour passed through.

A few notes:

Not pictured is a dedicated kiss and drop are which is a good touch, there are a number of short term (5 min parking spaces and an area to turn around in.

In terms of pedestrian access residents of the residential area on the western side have to cross the four lane Pascoe Vale Rd at a set of traffic lights. Pedestrians from the residential area on the eastern side have direct access via the station overpass. The 901 smartbus also serves this station from a pair of stops on Pascoe Vale Rd. As such people changing between the Frankston bound bus and train or vice versa also need to cross at the traffic lights.


Overall Impresions

My impressions are that the station is quite windswept and desolate. On the outside it just feels like a concrete oven. Although they have tried to counter this with some plantings. This really is a case of function over form, so you can't really complain.

That's one ghost station down. In all there are four new stations expected to be built on the existing Melbourne rail network over the next few years. Of those Lynbrook is one which has also been marked in the Melway Street Directory for many years and so also has that ghost station appeal about it. Lynbrook is to be completed some time this year...

Updates

I've posted a couple of New Zealand Posts in the last few days. They are posted on the days they happened they can be accessed by the direct links below or the New Zealand tag and links in the sidebar.

New Zealand Trip: Rototua
New Zealand Trip: Rotorua - Auckland - Paihia

Possibly Postponed

Definitely...

The wedding I mentioned in my previous post was to be this weekend. In fact it is my brothers wedding. As it is his third and (I believe) her second, so it's not such a big deal.

Why is it postponed? Due to the fact it was to take place in sunny Toowoomba. Clearly doing anything in South East Queensland at the moment is a bit difficult, so a wedding is definitely out of the question.

The plan was to fly to Brisbane, where we would hire a car and drive the 2 hours or so to Toowoomba. Given we need to drive through the flood waters to get to Toowoomba from Brisbane, I doubt we'll even make it if it were to go ahead.

My brother however still has some hope, and wont let us cancel our flights to Brisbane (Qantas is quite reasonably willing to waive all fees in light of the situation too). Never mind the fact that he is at his current home in western NSW and the roads between there and Toowoomba are cut. Last we heard he is still trying to contact his wife to be to see what's going on.

I guess we'll just wait and see...

New Years Resolutions

I'm not one to make new years resolutions, but this year I will make an exception.

For this blog

1. Make more blog posts
2. Finish New Zealand Trip posts. (boy I really lost the plot there...)
3. see #1

Personal

1. Eat less, exercise more, loose some weight.
2. Take public transport to work at least once a week
3. Get out more looking at things and taking photos (helps with #1 in both lists)

That should about do it, don't want to overdo it.. Will review this latter in the year.

Christmas/New Year Goings on.

This year we spent Christmas day at my brothers house. As my New South Wales brother wasn't down this year it was just a small turn out of my mother, brother, brothers wife, niece, nephew, brothers wife's parents and myself. Brother cooked a turkey in the webber, and we had had a pretty good meal. Present wise I was more generous than usual, (I think). I bought my niece and nephew Mario Kart Wii (they got a wii off santa, he sent me a note to tell me) and a remote control aeroplane each.

I think I did pretty well present wise as well. My stand out present from mum is a ticket to see Billy Connolly in a few weeks. I also got a beach towel and straw beach hat, and some chocolates.

I didn't drink too much or get into too much trouble (both bad), although I managed to fly the remote control plane I bought my nephew on to the neighbours roof. He spent the rest of the afternoon complaining. I'm still not sure when he got it back. Lucky it was a cheap one. I bought myself one a few days latter and broke it a few days after that. Isn't that always the way though.

I really didn't do much between Christmas and new year's eve. One day I went to see a movie with mum. We saw Little Fockers. It was OK but pretty predictable if you've seen the previous Meet the Parents/Meet the Fockers movies. Another day I took the 901 smart bus to the airport (write up on that coming soon).

New years eve was again a pretty low key affair. I really don't like new years eve (I think I've mentioned it before) so I'm not that fussed about what I do. Once again like last year I went to my mums sisters house for dinner with some of the family. After dinner until nearly midnight I played pool and watched some movies with my cousin. As they have a two story house in Thornbury with good views of the CBD we got a very good fireworks show at midnight.

That raps up the Christmas New Year period really. Unfortunately after the one week off I was back at work on the 4th. Really could do with a few weeks more. A few days in Queensland for a wedding latter this month will have to do for now. I hope it stops raining.

Receding Flood

I decided to have alook and see what the rains had brought on Tuesday after work. I should have gone on Monday or the weekend and the water would have been much higher at both spots.

Yarra River: Fitzsimons Lane

Directly underneath Fitzsimons Lane. The things dangling over
the water are gates used by kyakists (I have no idea what the right
word is) in competition. There was a fair bit of wet, very slippery
mud overa meter above the water line, so it had been higher.

This is the view looking upstream from an observation lookout just near the carpark.

Plenty River: Lower Plenty

Taken at Lower Plenty. It was obvious that the river had been much higher due to all the flattened grass and mud everywhere. Today when driving over the bridge I noticed the river was much lower again, well inside it's defined banks.

The view downstream towards the Yarra.

Upstream.

Once again there is a lot of wet sticky mud.

Looking upstream under the Lower Plenty Road/Main Road bridge.

Looks like there has been a lot of water through here recently.

This is the old bridge, no longer open to road traffic but used by
pedestrians and cyclists. I took the first two photos from here.

To get to school I had to cross this river, but further upstream in Greensborough. It flooded on a number of occasions, often above the bridge that was most convenient meaning a long detour. In year 12 a flood actually wiped out the bridge. The bridge was about 1.5 metres wide with steel I beams and a concrete surface and steel cable hand rails. There must have been a few trees floating down to take that out.

In the end it took the council about 6 months to build a new one, meaning I had to go the long way to school for far too long. The failing of the bridge is that it is too low. In that section the Plenty River has very steep banks. When it floods it fills very quickly, and for this reason, all the other bridges over the plenty river in this area are much higher, most actually arch over. For some reason the new bridge (now 11 years old) was built in the same spot and is almost identical to the old one. I wonder if it has been destroyed again. Something to check out on the weekend...

Novembers Updaters Timers

I haven't really been in a blogging frame of mind lately. I just can't be bothered really. I intend to start up again soon though. I've got a stack of stuff I could cover. Plus I need to get out more.

Added to that, I've been sick for the last few weeks. First on the cup weekend/or the weekend before the Melbourne cup (the Melbourne cup is on a Tuesday so it's not really a long weekend) I came down with gastro and that knocked me out until Oaks day. Then last weekend I got a bad cold which I am still trying to shake. I went to work today for the first time this week and mostly regretted it.

I have started remembering what I did on my New Zealand trip. I was trying to make it brief, but the long winded day by day descriptions are coming along. Sorry about that. Lots of photos to resize for those.

Last week I also did something blog worthy and am working on that as well. Again with photos.

It's the story of my life really, I start lots of things but rarely finish them.

Parking

Now that I drive to work, things such as parking interest me. My workplace is in a major suburban centre that has all kinds of businesses and is a transport hub for commuters to and from other places. Most Office buildings, like the one I work in, have on site parking. Some have enough parking for all employees, some don't. Lets just say that I don't think mine does, because my company charges about $100 a month for the privilege, deducted from salary. Being a contractor I don't think I'm even eligible. A friend of mine who works for a different company up the road a bit gets free parking.

Now this forces most people to seek parking elsewhere. The council in their wisdom has created a buffer around the area ranging from maybe 500 metres to nearly 1 kilometre in some cases that is either metered, time limited or both. The time limit ranges from an hour in our street, which is also ticketed, to two hours in outlying residential streets. Often it is unlimited parking on one side of the street and 2 hour on the other. No matter which way you look at it the council rakes in the revenue.

This forces people like me to park in residential streets far away. I've walked upto 2 km in each direction between my car and work in the past. I don't mind the walk so much as for me it is pretty good exercise. I've become lazy lately and will drive past work in order to park nearer. I used to park in a spot that was on the way to work and walk the rest of the way, sometimes 2 km as mentioned.

Another effect is that the lack of parking also creates situations where people will squeeze cars into the tightest spots as shown in the above image, and I've seen this same car squeeze into this space on more than one occasion.

Back from NZ

Tonight I have only just returned home from a 12 day trip to New Zealand. I only went to the North Island though, so managed to stay away from any earth quakes. I Visited Rotorua, Bay of Islands, Auckland and Wellington. It was a great trip, can't wait to get to the South Island in the future.

I took so many photos it is ridiculous. I will select some to post very soon.

New Zealand Trip: Rotorua-Auckland-Paihia

Monday 30th August

This would be a long day. Not having time to muck around before checking out and getting the bus I went around the corner to McDonald's for breakfast again. Quick and easy.

I checked out from the hostel and rolled my bag up the street and around the corner to the tourist info centre, which is also the town bus stop. I tagged my bag and showed the driver the print out of my ticket, stowed my bag underneath and went aboard. This bus would take me to Auckland, where I would change to another that would take me to Paihia. This was the final leg of my travel pass.

All the front seats were taken so I went about 3/4 of the way back on the right, this was to be my home for the next three and a half hours. I just looked out the window listened to my iPod most of the way.

Cows! One seems to have her way up a hill.

It was on this leg that I had one of those freaky coincidences of life. I had my iPod on shuffle meaning any song could come up next. So one of the songs that came up was "Mean to Me" by Crowded House. At the time we were just coming into the town of Cambridge ( I think) and passed by a road sign pointing to a town called Te Awamutu. At the exact time we passed the sign the line of the song that mentions Te Awamutu played. It just so happens that Te Awamutu is the birth place of Tim and Neil Finn. Anyway, that was a strange moment.

After about 1.5 hours we reached Hamilton where we stopped for about 25 minutes. I made a point of getting off and stretching. I ended up buying a sausage roll from the cafe at the bus station. When I got back on more passengers had got on the bus, which was now very crowded.There was a woman in my seat. I showed her that I had left my things on the seat and in the pocket and she went and found a seat elsewhere.

When we stopped in Hamilton I took a photo of the coach.

Crossing the Waikato River on the outskirts of Hamilton.
She was just about breaking her banks at the time.

Onwards to Auckland we followed the Waikato River, and stopped at a small town before crossing the hills to south of Auckland and that is when we landed in downtown Manakau city. Actually we stopped outside a Westfield shopping centre, it was like Auckland's version of Paramatta. There was also a theme park called Rainbow's End nearby, which we passed on the way in. Back on the motorway through suburbia we eventually emerged in the CBD and parked at the bus station under the Sky Tower. I had only about 45 minutes to do whatever I needed to do in Auckland.

I can't remember what I did with my bag in the meantime but I know I didn't drag it around. I decided to try and find some lunch so went around to the front of the casino looking for a food court of something like that. Only I found nothing except more expensive restaurants. I ended up walking all the way around the block and back to the bus station. I decided that the best bet was a ham and cheese toasted sandwich from the bus station cafe. It wasn't too bad, although it had processed sliced cheese in it, which as a rule I don't eat.

Boarding the new coach was interesting, some young girls (European backpacker types) attempted to get on first in front of some older people. The driver took exception and pulled them aside and made them wait until the older people had got on. By the time I got on there were very few seats and the back of the bus had been blocked off (to save cleaning?) I was disappointed as the only rows on the right had the pillars between the windows. I was pretty sure there would be good scenery on that side and wanted a full window. I was quite annoyed actually as all the "good" seats i.e. those with a full window were taken by euro back packer types.

We began driving and were soon back on the motorway. We crossed the harbour bridge, which although it bears some resemblance to the Sydney Harbour Bridge actually looks nothing like it. The locals however assure you the two are identical in every way shape and form.

The poor cousin.
Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Auckland city skyline from the Harbour Bridge.

Mesmerised by clouds.

Woken up by helicopter.
A Robbinson R22.

For some reason the euro backpacker types in front of me moved after a few minutes of driving to the other side of the aisle. I immediately moved forward to the better window. Later I think they regretted moving. I sure didn't, as the various beaches, rivers and mountains we passed were fantastic. It really did seem tropical, up here in the "tropical north".

Beach scenery just north of Auckland.

Scenery A bit further on

Yes more scenery, a bit further north.

Once again dairy cows ruled the countryside, and it was at the Swinging Cow cafe that we stopped for a break. Like a lot of places in New Zealand, it was self serve. Open the door and pick what you want with the tongs. I chose a home made spring roll, which is simply the best I've ever had.

The sign says it all really.

Not a bad place to stop.

signs

Oh look, more scenery.
Getting closer to Whangerei

The largest town we stopped at was Whangerei, where most people got off. The bus driver made a detour to a service station here to fill up with fuel. Another hour or so up the road and we wound our way in to the sleepy town of Paihia in the Bay of Islands.

Filling up.

I took a few minutes to find my bearings and then went and found my hostel. This time I picked the YHA. Once again I was the only person there, actually there was one other guest but I never saw them. After settling in to my room I went back into the town for dinner. The whole town was deserted, but it looked like it had a large carrying capacity for the summer holidays. There were a lot of choices to be had, any type of restaurant really. I picked a Thai place and had a Massaman Curry.

My lodgings for the next thee nights.

I got some supplies from the Four Square. Typically overpriced for a tourist oriented town (in a few days I discovered that the locals shop at a large supermarket on the outskirts of town). And returned to the hostel. I watched some TV before going to bed.

Paradise?
Needless to say I was blown away when I got here.

Across the waters.

The old church in Paihia.
I can't recall the denomination, niether catholic or Anglican though.
To me it looked no longer used.