Farewell to a neighborhood bike shop

I learned to ride a two wheeler quite late, actually my first bike was just a little smaller than a full size man’s bicycle. I might have been about 8 or 9 I suppose. 

Me on that old bike, with my sister and neighbor kid, I have no idea where they found training wheels to fit. (circa 1977)

The bike was handed down to me from my cousin in South Australia. Back in the 70s new bike were still fairly expensive, at the time I got my first bike it was a reasonable proposition to restore an old bike, including re-painting rather than to buy a new one. That's how I got my first bike, a hand-me-down farm bike with great big skinny wheels and a leather saddle when a lot of my mates were riding brand new dragsters with high handle bars, fat tires and a sissy bar on the back! 

There were no department store specials back then. Unbeknownst to me, my cousin's ancient but trusty old farm bike with the leather saddle which proved to be a literal pain in the arse (and embarrassment) to me at the time, was taken down to the bike shop in the back of the Kingswood station-wagon and checked in for a full overhaul. 

The 'bike shop' was Watsonia Cycles in Greensborough road, Watsonia. This was a real workshop where 'wheelmen', (serious cyclists) and hardcore bicycle mechanics (cross between a fitter and a blacksmith) tooled around with greasy bearings and hand made frames all day. This is the place where my first bike was re-born. Watsonia Cycles the place where bicycle guru's (who I believe even back then were slightly arrogant experts in their field) lovingly restored a seriously rusted clunky old piece of farm machinery (possibly belonging to the dawn of the safety bicycle) into a slick and gleaming piece of slightly dated, daggy, too big for a kid to learn on, bike! 

I'm not sure how long I owned that bike, or how long it took me to learn to ride it, but I do know that as soon as I could get rid of it and onto my brand new Malvern Star Dragstar with the extended frame I bloody well ditched that old bone rattler!

Watsonia Cycles (Later called Super Cycles) must have existed in the same place for more than 40 years. On a recent trip to Melbourne I discovered that the shop had closed.

In the 1980s Watsonia cycles played a pretty big part in encouraging the new era of BMX. I recall the time they set up a small circuit on the vacant land across the road which has since become the railway car park. They organized a demonstration day and kids came from all over Watsonia, Greensborough and Macleod to see the best of the best in exciting world of elite sports, Bicycle Moto Cross, do their thing! I have no idea who the guys were but their bike skills were mesmerizing and ensured that every kid in the neighborhood would be nagging their parents for the latest chromolly framed, plastic wheeled, knobby tyre'd over priced dragster usurping machine by, if not before Christmas! (Of course that was the year I finally got my dragster!)

Virtually exact replica of my very first bike, on display

In the early days of my cycling life I have to admit I was only an occasional customer at Watsonia Cycles, I rarely had money to spend on bicycle repairs, the stripped threads on my axle nuts and bodgy attempts at puncture repair will attest to that! Actually as time went on nothing much changed, even when I wasn't broke I avoided parting with my hard won cash! However I did spend some money in the shop from time to time and I am very happy to say that I was expertly set up with the Shogun Katana I bought there nearly 30 years ago and still love to ride today. 

Super Cycles, used to be called Watsonia Cycles. Shopfront 365 Greensborough Rd.

A lot of stuff used to revolve around that old bike shop, but I haven't been able to find any references online. It's likely once they re-paint it, the shop will pass out of memory. 

Connection to place

I am an Australian Citizen.

My ancestry on both my mother's and my father's side originate in Scotland. Both families settled in Victoria several generations ago (sorry if this information is a little vague, this is not a genealogy post)

I grew up in the outer Northern Suburbs of Melbourne. My parents house was build in a new Estate back in the late 1960s. Prior to this the land had been a farm, which I believe was owned by ta family by the name of Black. I have heard that an elderly lady, Mrs Black (possibly the original farm owner prior to subdivision), still lives in the old farm house around the corner, but I've never met her. I don't know the true history or the  original People who belonged to that place, although there must be one. It is known to be part of the Wurundjeri people's country. I can see evidence of where and how they lived in books, but their story is not commonly known to the settler inhabitants of their land and I can imagine those who remain do not fully know their land like their ancestors did.

Growing up I never heard their language or even of their existence. It is only now and due to all the work that has been done to rediscover our countries Indigenous heritage that these stories are beginning to be told, but they are revealed like relics from the past rather than threads of a tale that might connect us to the land we are on.

When I was a kid our house was still surrounded by open paddocks, horses would occasionally visit our yard. At the bottom of our street there was a fresh water creek and a patch of bushland that  must have been considered too steep to develop (The creek has since been filled in, the bush cleared and houses stuck on the side of the hill). Beyond the creek was open woodland on the steep slopes and dairy farmland on the flatter country, all subsequently redeveloped as housing estates. An open aqueduct passed through the farmland but beyond that was the Plenty River and more native bushland in the valley around the river. As the land on the city side of the aqueduct gradually became suburbia everything North of the aqueduct remained, The Country!'. This was where I liked to go most, it became my second home.

Land for Wildlife
Unfortunately it seems everything is up for grabs if you have a few bucks more...FOR SALE?

(The orange flags hanging on the fence mark out land to be bulldozed and paved)

As a kid I spent most of my time outside, riding my bike and exploring  having adventures of one kind or another. I explored every corner of my neighborhood especially the waterways, creeks, rivers and dams. I ate it's mushrooms, blackberries, cherry plums, sour apples and pears as well as whatever fruit I could reach over local gardeners fences. I noticed every bird, lizard, wallaby and roo; there were even turtles and bats. As I got older I'd often spend nights in the bushland adjoining the Plenty River with one or two of my adventurous mates, we'd catch eels and the occasional fish from the River. There was a special place on that river  where platypus lived. At night Sugar Gliders would leap through the acacias back at camp. My friends and I also spent many hours hunting rabbits along the banks and in the cow paddocks surrounding the river. We knew all it's secret places.

A sacred space by the river

Pebbles Crossing... As known by some

I often wondered about the original people, how they must have loved this place and why there is no apparent sign of them now. I grew up in that country and lived in it, I have been burned under it's sun and drenched in it's rain. I have walked across it's frost covered fields and felt the frozen grass snap under my feet while my toes froze in wet boots. I've drunk water from it's creeks, sat by the smoky fire of it's eucalyptus trees and sweated across miles of track and through the scrub. I've assisted the farmer to deliver a still born calf and skun my own calves crossing his barbed wire fences. I am not an Indigenous person of this country but can sympathize with those who are if they love it like I do. Although my ancestry is Scottish I  can only consider myself a native of the place I was born and grew up. I have traveled and lived a long way from the Plenty Gorge but my mind and heart keep tripping back there. It is my country. Yolngu friends have told me that it is quite natural for us to become part of the place where we are born. Even if it is not our own Clan Estate  the spirit of the place will be part of us and we a part of it.

It is no dream of mine,
To ornament a line;
I cannot come nearer to God and Heaven
Than I live to Walden even.
I am its stony shore,
And the breeze that passes o'er;
In the hollow of my hand
Are its water and its sand,
And its deepest resort
Lies high in my thought

(Henry David Thoreau)

I have heard it said that the land is not dead.
It is sleeping and waiting for it's people to come home. To sing the songs and call it by it's true name. Even though Piece by piece it has been sliced up, re-allocated, subdivided and sold! Dozed, filled in and paved, barely a scratch of earth remaining beside the concrete, bitumen and bricks! Ignorant and ambitious to profit from what cannot belong to them the developers have moved into places they should never be granted to step! They haven't ever seen a single mist rise from the river.

Drainage from the road straight into the creek

A pretty view for new home owners, but will it ever mean anything more than that?

The reality of modern 'best practice' land development technique

Out of site out of mind!

As Thoreau foretold in his reference to Flint's Pond, they have even re-named, profaned it and ultimately shamed it!

"Flint's Pond! Such is the poverty of our nomenclature. What right had the unclean and stupid farmer whose farm abutted on this sky water, whose shores he has ruthlessly laid bare, to give his name to it? Some skin-flint, who loved better the reflecting surface of a dollar, or a bright cent, in which he could see his own brazen face; who regarded even the wild ducks which settled in it as trespassers; his fingers grown into crooked and bony talons from the long habit of grasping harpy-like;— so it is not named for me. I go not there to see him nor to hear of him; who never saw it, who never bathed in it, who never loved it, who never protected it, who never spoke a good word for it, nor thanked God that He had made it. Rather let it be named from the fishes that swim in it, the wild fowl or quadrupeds which frequent it, the wild flowers which grow by its shores, or some wild man or child the thread of whose history is interwoven with its own; not from him who could show no title to it but the deed which a like-minded neighbor or legislature gave him who thought only of its money value; whose presence perchance cursed — him all the shores; who exhausted the land around it, and would fain have exhausted the waters within it..."

(Henry David Thoreau - Walden - 1854 The Ponds chapter)

If language is a gift from God, how many generations will pass before those who live here now will begin to speak the language of the places we inhabit? When will it be revealed to us if this place is Dhuwa or that place Yirritja? Who is this tree, rock or animal? What name should that sunset have? What songs do they sing and call me to dance to? Do I call this place mother, sister or brother? Will finally know that to kill a river is murder?

Simplify

Right now here in Darwin we are experiencing the eye of category 1 Cyclone Carlos. Prior to the development of the tropical low and the accompanying 'very' wet (Over 400mm in 24 hours) weather I was busy getting on with simplifying my life and leaving the blogging world behind me. Just give it up, cold turkey like a bad habit or addiction... (I'm sure Thoreau wouldn't have spent his days blogging...! He'd probably have some great derogatory description for those who waste their time on such egocentric nonsense)

Instead of blogging mindless 'twitter' I have been reading 'Walden' by Henry David Thoreau and spending my days exploring, walking, paddling, planting etc... and loving it! But now I'm housebound, taking shelter from Carlos, the Wind and the Rain,and I'm too close to the computer to resist.

Here's some things I've seen over the past month or so.


(A great train headed south)


(A walk through the mangroves amongst the Mud-skippers)


(A mossy wonderland)


(Wild Ginger on a hillside in Litchfield National Park)


(Giant Myrtle Beach trees in a sacred gully in the Otways)


(Paddling a swollen river in Geelong)


(A living sculpture of plants and food in Collingwood)


(A magical era of bicycle innovation and invention)

Over the past month I have enjoyed some really wonderful experiences. I have shared most of these with the ones I love and we have felt blessed to live in a place that has so much natural beauty and to have the right to travel freely to almost any place we like in this country. 

I have also seen the continued trauma and pain suffered by Asylum Seekers and the lack of compassion shown by our Governments, media and many members of our society toward these vulnerable people. 

I have seen the continuation of racist policies and sanctioned discrimination against Indigenous people in the Northern Territory and I have seen the destruction and defilement of places that are incredibly dear to me.

It's a busy time in this life and everything seems to be moving way too fast. I resolved at the end of last year to make better use of my time and not bother too much with useless things. The more practical the better and there's no point to prattling on about it. I may find that while tapping away on this keyboard I have missed a perfect opportunity to learn to knit, sharpen a tool, identify a plant, skin a rabbit or grow a bean! Right now I could be writing a letter to a certain Shire Council challenging them on their decision to allow developers to channel their stinking festering drain pipes from their environmentally disastrous housing estate straight into the Plenty River that I love!
Maybe if I'd had just one spare day I could have spent it collecting all the shit that has washed through those drains and dumped it in the nearest showroom of that housing estate? Now that would have been time well spent!


(The destruction of the fields where I used to roam)

I took my boy out to the fields so he could experience the fresh air, the smell of the grass and to feel the dry bark and clay under his feet just as I did when I was his age! Alas I was too late! They have taken it all away!

On the road... (yes again)

There's a thousand stories I'd love to write and so many tales I'd tell if I had a moment or two to spare!

(I certainly do not have two moments... not even one. but I'm sneeking this post in between moments.... I’ve got to leave something here on this blog even if it’s jumbled and messy.)

The first great thing I’d talk about if I had time would be that I’ve finally made it back to New Zealand for the first time since I visited there and vowed to stay about 13 years ago. It was always my intention to move back there to but of course life has a way of delivering fate in unexpected ways.As it turned out for me I have spent all those years living in the Northern Territory of Australia.

13 years later I finally managed to return but this time with a wife and kids… I was really hoping that everyone would like it there as much as me. They did! For some reason I feel a very strong pull toward NZ as a potential home. There are plenty of reasons why it appeals to me, here are just a few:

Fresh air, Fresh fish, Fresh fruit and vegetables, Fresh water, Less people, Nuclear Free!, Treaty of Waitangi, Great bush walking, Sea Kayaking, Reasonable rainfall, It’s cooler than Darwin, good soil for growing food, Cycling… / Marked Bicycle Lanes on roads…


(Wood Carving @ Ship's Cove)


(Sheep... Of course)

We only had a week there and spent it touring around the Top of the South Island. First stop was Hanmer Where we spent a whole afternoon just lounging about in the hot pools. Next we wound our way up to Kaikura, where the views of the mountains are spectacular, the coastline craggy and we saw our first seals for the trip. The road north of Kaikura was narrow but smooth and criss crossed the railway line between steep hills and the rugged east coast. There were small caravans selling fresh crayfish all the way along. There was very little native vegetation until Picton (my wife’s favorite spot). From Picton we took the Mail boat out on a tour of the Marlborough Sound… This was a most awesome tour! Both Captain/Guides were really great giving us a very informative commentary and revealing their love for this very special place. On the cruise we visited an Island full of rare native birds… (quite unafraid of humans), saw penguins, Bottle-nosed dolphins and Blue Cod.


(Dolfin)


(Little Blue Penguins)


(Robin)
I finally made it back to Nelson a place that I fell in love when I first visited. It had changed a fair bit in 13 years but I still found it quite special, actually having a little more time to look around I found it even better than I remember it. They have bike lanes all over the place, the beach is really nice, the children’s playground was just like the ones we had when I was a kid and there was a real sense of easy living.


(Bike lanes in Nelson)
From there we headed out to Greymouth and stopped at heaps of great spots along the way. Finally returning to Christchurch in time to catch the tourist trams around the town, visit the Arts Centre and Museum before riding the Gondola to the top of the hills behind the city!

For one day between landing in Melbourne and heading out to NZ we stayed with family and I visited some of those old places from my past I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been absorbed with thoughts about my youth (again) and wondering about places, things, people and everything else that occupies the space where and when I spent my youth. I wandered around my parents garden and was impressed with the water tanks they’d installed and the amazing amount of fruit their citrus trees were producing in a tiny sliver of soil only a foot and a half wide between a paved path at the side of their house and their neighbors fence.


(Citrus Trees at my folks place)


(Wize water use)

I took a ride down to Wastonia and visited an old apple tree that is still surviving quite nicely between the main road and the railway line. I noticed that a really old Pampas Grass that had some how taken root in the steel fence of a railway bridge had managed to survive at least 20 years of rough treatment and I wandered down Wattle Drive which is an old street that has never been paved in all the time that the suburbs of Watsonia and McLeod have been developed. As I rode along the old streets I spied out all the old fruit trees that had been planted 40 years ago and were still holding on quite nicely. There were pears, apples and plum trees in many of the yards. A particularly old part of the Neighborhood had several fig trees, which must have been popular when the suburb was first established and the trees have endured along with their now elderly gardeners.


(Apple tree surviving against the odds)


(Pampas Grass holding on)
The times are changing and gradually the old people are moving on or dying. I’ve been told that it is becoming a real-estate hotspot and younger people are starting to move in, properties are being subdivided and one by one the old fruit trees are being removed. It’s a little bit sad really but who knows maybe in another 20 years I’ll be able to go back and find one or two of those old fig trees standing in a forgotten corner.

Apple trees in suburbia

Recently I saw an article about councils down in Melbourne coming around to the idea of urban food production to the point that they are talking about planting fruit trees on curbside nature strips.
What an awesome idea! I sometimes think back to when I was a kid and our neighborhood still had elements of the rural area that it had been. I remember the creek at the bottom of our street, the open paddocks that were all around, and a horse that would sometimes wander into our front yard.
Our area had been old farming properties and there were remnants of those places that still remained long after most of the land had been converted into house blocks or roads.
I remember the old open aqueduct that used to be full of water and visiting the remaining cow paddocks to collect manure. There was an abandoned farm on a large patch of open land that eventually became the Northern Ring Road. And there were old plum pear and apple trees that in many cases wound up fenced into peoples yards or bulldozed.

Lots of things have changed but some still remain my memories are strong and I miss some of those old things. So many people have come and gone from that place where I grew up. I wonder if any of them notice the changes or the remnants of things that existed before they arrived.

Apple tree survivor of many changes

A year or so ago I was walking down the main road of my home town and noticed one of those special remnants from the time before. It was a single apple tree perched on the tiniest of scraps of land between a busy road that has undergone some widening through the years and a railway line that has been excavated to several meters below the surface of the land.
Ever since I saw that tree my mind has often drifted back to what my town was like when I was a kid. I wondered about the farms and the farmers, their animals and their lives. As I got older and roamed further I often wonder also about what and who was there before them. I explored and made all sorts of discoveries. Old gold mines abandoned quarries, discarded machinery all those kinds of things. Although I dreamed and I wondered I never found anything of the people who were there before them all. The people who must have lived around and loved the river that I swam and fished in. The people who would have known all the waterholes and special spots I liked to think I'd discovered. There were no obvious signs that they'd been there at all. It was only my wondering that seemed to give them any life at all...

When I go back there I look for that apple tree and wonder how many apple trees had there been. Who remembers them? How many are left..? Who notices them? I hope someone does. These things are special to me. Amid all the changes; the concrete, bitumen and steel, that tree is still there. It might survive long enough to see more changes. It could bloom one day to find a street full of apple trees have sprouted, and the songs of the old people might be heard.
Is there yet time for these life giving fruits?
(another rant!)