See that red circle at the left edge of map? Just along that road a bit are the sewerage farm and the tip (garbage dumping place). I woulda put them into the map exactly where they were but it was either do a new map with an extra bit down that side then have a nice long lay down or post this map and actually fucking update the blog already.
The yellow bits are the main road, the grey bits are the shops, the row of black dots is the railway line, the other dotty bits are the main beaches and the green bits are parks and reserves and wetlands. And the blue lines are creeks. Unless they're really straight in which case they're drains that used to be creeks.
Round the streets of Woy Woy and all the other places I walk, I see council workers fixing roads, electricity company workers getting branches off powerlines after the wind, Telstra workers putting in new phone lines and fiddling about down holes with PMG covers, the garbos in their truck picking up the bins, and stuff like that.
All stuff that makes a town tick. It happens all around us every day and we hardly notice it.
But we'd be stuffed without it. Civilisation is supposed to be 2 hot meals from breakdown. I reckon it's more like a week with the sewerage backed up. Gazundas and latrines just wouldn't cut it in urban society. We'd be rioting in the streets.
Anyways. This post was inspired by something I overheard on the train from a bloke who laid sewerage pipes for a living. He was talking specifically about Woy Woy and other local towns. This is the gist of what he said:
Where you've got yer older suburbs and towns, like Woy Woy, you've got an older sewerage system.
Under a given road there's a sewerage line and into it empties the sewerage lines from each house.
All well and good.
But then you get one of these places where some developer knocks down an old house. The old house had one sewerage line servicing one or two loos (toilets), a couple of adults, 2.4 kids and the Christmas influx of aunts and uncles and cousins. Up they all get in the morning, flush the loo and off to work and school.
Now that house is knocked down and half a dozen units are slapped up in its place. Half a dozen units each with one or two adults and maybe the 2.4 kids and the Christmas influx of aunts and uncles and cousins. That's 6 to 12 adults, 2.4 to 14.4 kids and 6 Christmas influxes of aunts and uncles and cousins.
And up they all get in the morning, flush the loo and off to work and school. Except the main sewerage line under the street, the one that carries it all away, hasn't usually been upgraded to carry the extra load.
So, in conclusion, old streets have narrow poo tubes. And there's other stuff like water pipes bringing clean water in that can be pretty old and need flushing out and replacing etc. We had that recently in Woy Woy. I escaped the worst but Stevo copped it.
The point of this post is just to say ta to all the blokes (and chicks) who fix the poo tubes and so on.
Collection of Lost Things
All my old St. John's photos
I've been collected again. Over at a fun Aunty project called Lost Places.
It's essentially my Gone set of photos writ large and with the whole country doing it. Pop over for a gander.
Local linkage
Craig wants to hear from locals about Empire House at Empire Bay.
Fabulous and fabulously named collection of Woy Woyan and Gosford area memorabilia and photos at Gostalgia. Ta very kindly for the linkage, Michael. Hope to fuck I got your link right this time.
Where the fuck have I been for the last 2 months?
Crook. Sick. Buggered. Stuffed. Bit of trouble with my own poo tubes. Gross symptoms. Let's not go there.
Spent most of it sleeping it off then, for the last couple of weeks, dozing on the sofa with the remote. Saw that thing where that guy died wheelie-bin surfing down Kingsview Drive/Lone Pine Avenue (the high steep bit is Kingsview, the long straight bit is Lone Pine) and watched 16-year-old Jessica Whatsit sail in through the heads after a lone trip round the world in a pink boat.
Still crook but managed a shuffle round the block every day this week so things are looking up again.
Okay. That's zonked me out for the day. Off back to the sofa with a blanket and a nice big cuppa tea. See you again soon-ish.
