Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

The number which came up this morning was 7, which at first glance looked like one of the less promising maps for this campaign (if not as difficult as 4 or 95, neither of which have come up yet). The east side of the railway line hosts various defunct factories, some funct factories (sadly the Nestle one seems better at containing smells within its walls than the Lindt factory in Zurich), and the sort of warehouses which you hear about when the waste stored therein goes up in a cloud of toxic smoke (whereupon it often transpires that the place is owned by the sort of person who gets referred to as a "colourful identity", until something happens to them at which point they become "the victim was well known to police").

Instead I went for the west side, starting at the Upfield station which was familiar territory for Clare in her past life at Hume City Council (their depot's near there) but not very familiar for many other people. (It certainly isn't familiar for me, although I think we sometimes used Barry Road as a route choice from the Hume to Essendon in pre-Ring Road days). This took me into the suburb of Dallas, a name which comes not from a developer's attempt to give the place some American glamour but is instead from Sir Dallas Brooks, who seems to have a lot of things named after him for a mid-20th century Governor. (Victoria's postwar political instability meant that he did have to do a bit more than just cut ribbons, and sometimes had to make non-obvious decisions about who might be able to command the confidence of the House as Premier - something he didn't always get right because one of them lasted fewer days than Liz Truss did weeks). The area has the reputation as one of Melbourne's most disadvantaged and 30 years ago it probably was; like a few other Housing Commission suburbs of its vintage (West Heidelberg comes to mind), it's a mix of people for whom life has taken a turn for the better (most of whom seem to have put their money into cars rather than houses), those for whom it hasn't, and places I recognise immediately from my experience of political doorknocks up the north end of Cooper as home to (what's Turkish for a nonna?). It's predominantly Muslim (Turkish being the largest share), and according to the "Food and Nightlife" section of its Wikipedia entry it has lots of kebab shops. (They're not wrong there; the small shopping strip across the road from Upfield station has four).

I'd been to the MFR park come-and-try-it event at Princes Park earlier to provide what turned out to be largely unnecessary help; my back had felt tight while standing around and I thought this run might be a struggle, but it was OK - as with Thursday it was pretty consistent. Much cooler than yesterday but still felt a bit warm when the sun was out.

Adding Hume to my list now means I have (since starting to track these things in early 2020) completed at least one "street" in every local council area in greater Melbourne (in the case of Casey the "streets" in question were two bush tracks at the Police Paddocks event last March). One I didn't complete was Blair Street, the third of these I've encountered in as many days; the Coburg one is named for a 19th century MP and I suspect the Brunswick one is too, but probably not this one.

Also dropped into the Fawkner cemetery on the way up to pay a visit to where some family memorial plaques are (don't think I've been here since after my grandmother's funeral). My music shuffle obviously didn't get the memo about where I was because on the way in it started up with "Stayin' Alive" - I guess at least it wasn't "Another One Bites The Dust" (which the Canberra ABC famously played after the news of Freddie Mercury's death).

C • Dallas 2