Wednesday, September 4, 2013

OTBR: Gun Emplacements of Wollongong

Latitude: S 34° 29.184
Longitude: E 150° 55.044

A child on a road trip with his family asks, "Where are we?" and the father answers, "Let's check the map. We're off the blue roads [the Interstate Highways marked in blue on the road atlas]. We're off the red roads [the US and state highways]. We're off the black roads [the county highways]. I think we're off the map altogether." It was always my dream to be off the map altogether.

After the jump, a few of the random places (and I mean random literally) that I visited vicariously last month that are "off the blue roads".



  • in Hill 60 Park in Port Kembla, New South Wales, typical coastal bushland, with the remains of naval fortifications built during World War II
  • in the icy waters of Lake Superior in Superior, Wisconsin, near a grain elevator on Toledo Pier
  • on the grass of Baltmore's Enoch Platt Free Library, next to a freshly cut tree stump
  • 5 meters down a roadside bank in New Zealand, in forested land that has recently been harvested
  • in a corn field south of Chicago, 3 km from the Chicago Bears training camp
  • in a meadow in Estonia with apples, blackberries, blueberries, lingonberries, strawberries and raspberries
  • on the edge of the property of a metal stamping and fabricating company in Ohio
  • in the middle of the parking lot of a school district maintenance centre in British Columbia
  • in a two-story, yellow walk-up on the San Francisco peninsula currently for sale for $699,000 (visited on three different days by three different players, none of whom apparently put a bid on the house)
  • in a two-story, rather dilapidated apartment building with dirty paint and run-down yard in Santa Rosa, California
  • between a soybean field and a nice pasture in the rolling hills of southern Illinois
  • in a soybean field in the bottom land between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers
  • in New South Wales, in a very open paddock with long dry grass and a couple of large cattle
  • on the east side of CO 105 in a field with five horses and a hill with a sweeping view, including a very long coal train
  • on fire trails in New South Wales where the 22nd annual Lake Macquarie Rogaine was in progress, in well-overgrown terrain with plenty of trip hazards, mostly "wait-a-while" vines
  • in a gated resort community called Buccaneer Bay, near the Platte River in Nebraska, with artificial lagoons to allow boating from your back yard to the lake
  • in farm land in Austria with meadows, cows, and a small freshly harvested rye field
  • seven kilometers beyond the end of paved road in mostly open, low brush in the Deschutes National Forest in Oregon
  • north of York, England, at the bottom of Common Lane, a dead end road with houses and farm buildings
  • in a stand of birch and sumac trees in Rome, New York, near historic transportation landmarks - railroads, the Erie Canal, and the Oneida Carry, a portage that inspired the canal
  • off a narrow gravel road on a farm called Le Meytadier, in wooded land in central France, with lush green farmland and typical French country villages
  • in Idaho's the Arban Valley, a very large and hilly agricultural area covered with rolling fields of wheat
  • and on a turf farm in New South Wales ("It looks like big blocks of green carpet. As I was arriving in the morning, the sun was shining through all of the sprinklers and looked stunning.")

No comments: