Updates

  • Topography shock: Postcards from the south

    Topography shock: Postcards from the south

    There’s nothing like a change in surroundings to cast your normal environment — that familiar place you call ‘home’ — in a new light. The closer you are to something, the easier it is to forget what makes it special or distinctive. For me, home has always been Brisbane’s western suburbs. I’ve lived in Bardon,…

  • Western Creek on display

    Western Creek on display

    A few months ago I moved out of Rosalie and the catchment of Western Creek. I didn’t want to leave, but such is the plight of a renter. I now am a citizen of Oxley Creek, which runs through my new neighbourhood of Rocklea. So these days I am writing about Western Creek from a…

  • Bottles and cans: an adventure in suburban archaeology

    Bottles and cans: an adventure in suburban archaeology

    Suburban secrets Since I started chasing lost creeks, I have been drawn to spaces that most people would tend to ignore or avoid. For example, I often find myself peering into drains, which in many urbanised areas are the only waterways left. I’m sometimes tempted to venture inside them, but I rarely do. Out in…

  • Uncovering Langsville Creek, Part 2 – The catchment

    Uncovering Langsville Creek, Part 2 – The catchment

    This page is part of a series: The whole iceberg If you look at the Milton Reach of the river on any of the old maps of Brisbane, such as the one drawn by A.R. McKellar in 1895 (shown to the right), you will notice a creek with several winding branches that meets the river…

  • Dipping into the history of Norman Creek

    Dipping into the history of Norman Creek

    It’s always good to learn that you are not alone in pursuing a particular passion. It’s a welcoming sign that you might not be crazy after all, or that if you are, you are at least in good company. The history of Brisbane’s creeks (extinct or otherwise) is not a topic that has received a…

  • Correction – Langsville Creek catchment area

    Correction – Langsville Creek catchment area

    Just a quick note to mention that I have just updated the recent post about the catchments of the Crescent Reach to include a revised outline of the Langsville Creek catchment. My first attempt at mapping that catchment omitted an area between (roughly) Ascog Terrace and Kensington Terrace, and including Toowong Village. I thought this…

  • The catchments of the Crescent Reach

    The catchments of the Crescent Reach

    This post was updated on 24 May 2013 to include a revised outline of Langsville Creek catchment. One of the first things I did when I created this website was to map out the catchment of Western Creek. While Western Creek has remained my focus, I have increasingly spent time thinking and writing about its…

  • Uncovering Langsville Creek, Part 1

    Uncovering Langsville Creek, Part 1

    This page is part of a series: This is the first in a series of posts about Langsville Creek, which was Western Creek’s upstream neighbour on the Toowong/Milton Reach. I do not intend to research Langsville Creek fully at this stage, as I have too much still to learn about Western Creek. But I couldn’t…

  • Brisbane,1946… on Google Earth!

    Brisbane,1946… on Google Earth!

    As a certain amply-sized entrepreneur of self-branded cleaning products used to say, “I’m excited!” I’m excited because I’ve just made a new gallery featuring aerial imagery from 1946 (the earliest of Brisbane, as far as I know) as you’ve never seen it before: in Google Earth! Even better, you can see the difference between then…

  • 1946 Aerial Imagery

    1946 Aerial Imagery

    Then and now: A birds-eye view The images below use aerial photographs from 1946 to illustrate how the landscape of Western Creek has changed over the last six and a half decades. The 1946 aerial photos are, as far as I know, the earliest that exist of Brisbane. They are used extensively in planning, development…

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