The Melbourne Cup is on, the race that stops the nation. Up to until a few years ago there was always another race on Cup Day, the Eastment St Billy Cart Derby in Northcote. It was a fantastic community event where brave dare devils would ride Billy Carts down Eastment St. Unfortunately, it got too big and was cancelled a few years ago. This year it was going to be replaced by the Eastment St Junkfest. I had to check it out. It was a beautiful atmosphere. A lot of the residents had little garage sales, there was a stand where you could get bad haircuts, bands were playing and you could join in with group karaoke. Every once in a while a little shower went down and people huddled together under umbrellas. It was a great feeling of community. I bumped into lots of friends. One of them was Jeremi. Jeremi had just moved to Northcote a week ago, so we went on a little tour of the Northcote hinterland.  I discovered a new look out from where you had a great view of the surrounding suburbs. I walked home as the sun was going down. I took some nice pictures of lots of spring flowers in the evening light and even saw a rainbow when I arrived back in Collingwood.

My Curiosity Walk began while I was swimming at Fitzroy Pool. My friend Alex texted me to come over and have a look at his new place in Clifton Hill. He told me he was going to the shops and to come over in 30 min. I went to Smith St to have a sandwich and I got another text from Alex: “Look into the window!” There he was standing right next to me at the shop register. He drove me to his new place and showed me his beautiful backyard. Alex lives close to a shot tower. It’s a tower where they use dispensed drops of molten lead from the top. While the droplets were falling they formed perfect spheres to be used as bullets. On the premise of the shot tower there is now a linen import business. We asked them if we could have a look inside the shot tower and were told that I hadn’t been opened in decades and the stairs were rotted away. So we continued exploring and found a hidden playground. We sat on the swings. Something I hadn’t done in ages. We went on through the Clifton Hill, passed lots of blooming roses and had a pub meal before I made my way back to Fitzroy. There were lots of people on the streets dressed up in amazing Halloween costumes.

I was a bit short on time today because I had to be home for dinner. So I decided to limit travel time to 30 min. I went down to the station and took the first train. It was going to South Morang. After 30 min I got off at Bell Station in Preston. I wondered around High st and kept asking people if they new about any interesting sites around Preston. Nobody seemed to know any interesting places. I finally bumped into Nathan who turned out to be a street photographer. He told me about the food trucks and Preston Trailer Park and some laneways with murals in them. I had a beer at the Trailer Park and went look for the laneways. I eventually found them. In one of them all the sudden a butterfly landed right next to me so I could take some lovely pictures. I also discovered some wise words written on the local supermarket before I went back to Fitzroy.