Sunday at the quarry

I can't be bothered turning this into a narrative so I have just typed my notes verbatim. The visit was productive and I look forward to returning on a weekday afternoon to see what kind of things happen then. I have been ruminating over the lateness of my visit on Friday night and whether I should attempt anything like this again and I think probably not (even though I would really like to) just because of safety reasons (but that makes me feel like I'm missing out on a whole lot of weird things that would be interesting to observe so I don't know). Maybe I can compensate for the lack of nighttime observations with information provided to me by Sunshine police. So far the developers of RVE have ignored my attempts to contact them but I may physically attend their sales office in the coming week.

I think I forgot to mention this but I have been told by Brimbank CC that any information I want must be obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and therefore costs real money. I don't know if this is for real or just an excuse to get me to stop calling them. I'm going to the VU library again tomorrow to read through some final things and when I do, I'll wrote the biggest blog post ever about it, because I've discovered so many interesting things. I guess the challenge here lies in actually integrating these findings into my thesis rather than stating a series of facts but I guess the difference there is a critical analysis of the things I have discovered.

Anyway, the point of this post is the quarry, so here you go:

3:45 pm - I arrive at the quarry. There are 3 trail bikes on a small plateau about 150m from the dead-end street (where a blue Mazda is parked).

3:51 pm - A small white car arrives, and parks next to the other car. A couple exit the vehicle and walk around, crossing the mangled fence and walking about 10 metres into the quarry site. They mostly just looked around.

3:53 pm - A mother and her two small children walk over from Halong Drive and explore the fence line. The youngest picks up a plastic bag and takes it with him. The couple from the white car return to their vehicle and stand next to it talking. 

3:56 pm - The couple get into their car and leave. I wonder whether they're considering buying property in the area, or whether they were there for the quarry. 

3:57 pm - The mother and her two children walk back up the hill. Four young adults, who I didn't see before, walk out of the quarry hole towards the trail bikes and continue uphill towards SH, before changing course and walking out onto the first terraced ledge of the quarry (closest to the water). The quarry looks larger than usual with a group of people providing scale.

3:59 pm - Distant motorbike sounds (I can't see anything, though - probably coming from the other side of the river or dense shrubbery on the quarry side).

4:00 pm - A black Mercedes arrives. The driver of the vehicle slows down and gestures repeatedly to his passenger, pointing at the quarry. He drives away.

4:01 pm - More motorbike sounds. Two members of the quarry ledge group return to their bikes.

4:02 pm - A small black car with a half-open boot containing building materials arrives and proceeds to park perpendicular to the other cars at the dead-end. 

4:05 pm - A trail bike rider (perhaps relating to the above motorbike sounds) exits the quarry, driving over the mangled fence. They disappear down Halong Dr. The black car full of building materials leaves. I don't know whether these materials were new or used/going to be thrown away.

4:09 pm - Two sports cars arrive in a row, driven by a male and a female. An old man walks past my car. The two sports cars park next to the blue car noted above. A male exits one vehicle and proceeds to punch (jokingly or seriously?) the car tailing him. A young woman then gets out of her car, speaks with the male, and places her handbag in the boot. 

4:12 pm - The two drivers set off to explore the quarry on foot. They enter the site with some confidence, like they've been here before (as contrasted with the other couple, who seemed to exhibit some trepidation).

4:13 pm - Those on the quarry ledge walk back to their trail bikes, although a member of the group has been left behind. He sits alone while the couple wave at the rest of his group - they proceed to greet each other and begin socialising. 

4:15 pm - The now-larger group walk slightly downhill and are out of view. The couple follow those who have already been at the site for quite some time.

4:16 pm - The group now begin walking uphill to SH. 

4:17 pm - The group stop on a small slope; they look around and point out various things to each other (I wish I knew what). Most of them seem well-acquainted with the area.

4:18 pm - The group slowly descend.

4:20 pm - The group return to the trail bike plateau. The group member left on the ledge is still there, sitting motionless on a large piece of basalt.

4:21 pm - The group now return to the ledge. There is a motorbike noise to the north-east of the site. Ascertaining the true location of this noise is difficult given most sounds tend to echo throughout the valley.

4:23 pm - All group members are now on the ledge, but one individual decides to return to their car.

4:24 pm - A young male drives down the street (Rivervalley Boulevard) in a Burgundy sedan. He does a full loop of the roundabout and drives past me slowly, before pulling over to the left about 100 m up the hill. He proceeds to park in a driveway (for an unsold and empty block of land) directly in front of me. 

4:26 pm - Quarry lurker who returned to their car now back with the rest of their group.

4:27 pm - A silver car arrives, driving slowly and probably looking at property. It does not stop and leaves almost immediately (unsurprising - there isn't much to see if you're not into quarries). The people on the ledge are still there: someone is yelling and others are laughing. I can hear the motorbike again.

4:28 pm - This burgundy sedan is still parked in front of me. I can see the driver looking back towards me every now and then. I wonder what their deal is.

4:30 pm - A motorbike drives up Halong Dr, crosses the mangled fence (sorry - there's no better way to describe it, so get used to hearing 'mangled fence') and stops.

4:32 pm - The bike person proceeds to join the ledge group. There are now five people there.

4:33 pm - Another bike person appears! This seems to be a popular activity. Makes sense given the good weather (and lack of mud). They don't make contact with the group.

4:34 pm - Two men walk downhill from the more developed part of RVE. As they do so, they pass the burgundy car, which leaves almost immediately. The driver does not go past me (or the quarry) again, instead opting to drive straight to Duke St.

4:35 pm - The ledge group begin throwing stones into the quarry. Some guy in a white shirt is the main instigator of this as he picks up stones and begins hurling them into the water. Others start joining in as they begin walking south along the quarry ledge.

4:39 pm - The group are still throwing rocks. A few cockatoos are bothered by this and fly away from the quarry in a panic. 

4:41 pm - A young family walk along Halong Dr and briefly towards the quarry before changing direction and walking uphill.

4:42 pm - The group catch on to the idea that rock size = splash size. They start lifting heavier rocks and throwing them in, while two individuals decide to sit on the very edge and push loose stones with their feet (the thought of this makes me feel so uneasy). They're still laughing and yelling.

4:44 pm - They're still going. I would love to hang around and see if anyone eventually falls in or does something stupid but I have a birthday dinner to go to. So far they're having a great time which makes me wonder if they come here every weekend to do this kind of thing. I know I would if I had more spare time. It's kind of cool that they feel such ownership over the space that they just leave their motorbikes and related gear on their little plateau while they explore the area.

That was boring so I'll make up for it with photos:

This picture has no purpose I just thought the bird was cool 

Tyre marks on the roundabout

More

CCTV cameras installed somewhat recently

A crow and some new signage. A lot of the trash and some of the concrete pipes have been removed

Poor fence

Such a mangled fence (if you look closely you can only just see the shaded plateau thing where the motorbikes were) 

Relatively clean (the pile of crud is the concrete pipes)

Useless fence

New signs!(!!!!!) which were definitely not there last time I was here during the day 

More tyre marks (I'm going to assume 4WDs) plus you can see how far away the closest houses are (the last few times I visited, I've parked up near the house in the middle) 

What a nice day to be at the quarry