Walking from North West Hospital to Everton Park Shopping Centre

This walk would normally take about 20 minutes. It was very hot so I walked slower and paused under trees to check my map, taking almost 40 minutes.

That is where the phone is invaluable when walking. Like many Brisbane suburbs, Everton Park is not built on a grid system. Take a wrong turn while walking, especially in that maze of streets at the top of the map, and you lose many more than a few minutes.

It was reasonably shady to start with and started well. I saw this street tree with an elkhorn and orchid and wondered if I should put some on the young street tree on my verge, or maybe wait until it would be out of reach of passing plantlovers.

I saw a mysterious hole in the middle of one verge. There was no paving and this is where you would normally expect to walk. That is a root of a tree crossing the top. It was so deep I couldn’t see the bottom of the hole.

I saw pomegranate trees bearing lots of fruit inside a front fence.  I wondered how many children will grow up with memories of seeing fruit grow in their neighbourhoods.

That’s a good traffic hump and 20km is a good speed for suburban streets.
Is it supposed to double as a pedestrian crossing? No path this side but it is so dry that the ground could be concrete.

This neglected verge garden was the only verge garden I saw on the walk. The possibility of neglect is one of the reasons that some people oppose verge gardens but is a neglected verge garden really any worse than neglected weedy grass if it’s not blocking the way? At least the garden was providing habitat and some shade for the soil which was more than the sparse grass was doing.

One of the things about walking is that you see more. Being in a car, even as a passenger, narrows your focus on the journey. You are passing through in your car space, rather than being in the wider space.

When walking, you tend to look around more and have more time to notice things. Brisbane has many hilly suburbs with surprising views.

There were areas with no pavement and some of the time I walked on the road. I saw just one other pedestrian on the walk.

Overall, it was a functional walk that you’d do to get from A to B, but probably not repeat for pleasure. There wasn’t much shade, a minority of houses had a street tree and there was no sign of recent tree planting. Most of it had no paths. More trees, pathways, and some much-loved nature strips would make all the difference.