Paddock Tracks
Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2003 11:51 pm
I was reading the thread about forests, and it reminded me of what an enjoyable time I had as a kid growing up in a farming town of 200, playing in the fallowed fields behind our home.
Anyway, paddock tracks. Hope you enjoy :
Paddock Tracks Near Market Street Court Residence, Marnoo (Approx 1980-1983)
I used to spend hours and hours walking around the paddocks, first just stepping randomly, and then retracing the scarce tracks and flattening out an actual track. Not to mention adding the towns, the signs, the mazes, and even sometimes barriers for the sides of the tracks!
This activity will be described in a sort of recreation format, showing how I'd start a project, and how I would then build on it. Because the paddock is regularly fallowed ever year, and crops are grown in it, each of the worlds created had a very finite life expectancy! The following is an example of one such 'season'.
Generally treated as the main entrance, or launching area, of the tracks, was a spot just behind the yard that lay behind the driveway of the home I used to live in, on Market Street. I would wander past the fruit tree that was up the back of there, between that and the treehouse, and step over the wire fence, which was quite dilapidated and didn't take much stepping over. I vaguely remember there being a plank set down for ease in getting over, but I don't think that it was even required.
The short frontage of the paddock, probably only a dozen feet wide, maybe a little more, was sometimes a wee bit muddy, according to my best recollection. This seems odd, because if rain had made this area wet, then the weather would have been such that I would not have been so interested in getting out into the paddock. I don't specifically recall having wandered the tracks in poor weather, though I may very well have done so. Surely it would have been a better experience when the fallow was dry.
The most rewarding way to start the campaign was to simply step right out into the paddock, utilising a normal gait, and go for a walk. In a fallowed paddock, a standard walk would leave footprints, sometimes stark, and at other times sublime. The steps, with myself being in the chronoligical region that lays between child and youth, would most likely have been about a foot apart. On occasion, with the intent of adding more 'mystery' to the tracks for when I came back across them later, I might even have performed this early part of the project at a run, or a trot. This would leave more space between footprints. The result was that when I rediscovered a track at a later date, there was a bit of a challenge involved in following it, not to mention the excitement of finding out where it went.
Sometimes heading in straight lines, on other occasions implementing a higgledy-piggledy approach, bending both formally and erratically, depending on the mood each time, I'd bluster out into the wild grey yonder. Of course, I would change my method every few minutes, so that there was good variation. After all, the fun was going to be in the paths created, so they shouldn't by any means be too structured or predictable.
One of the best advents of making random directional changes, is that it became to hard to work out where I'd already been, which made for some pleasantly surprising accidental intersections. Wandering around, in the main haphazardly, I would occasionally come across one of my previously laid tracks. There was real excitement here, on two counts.
One was that I'd made an intersection, meaning that future travel along these tracks offered the glittering prize of options, a vessel for making decisions. If you have ever owned an electric train set, this can easily be elaborated on. One circular set of track for the train to run on is fun in itself, but doesn't compare to the hyperadvent of junctions, where you can have the train wander a different way to the direction that it took last time. The more junctions, the more options. More fun. A bit like a choose-your-adventure book!
The other benefit of coming across a previously laid track is based on the thrill of finding some, as yet undefined, place where I had already been. Questions would arise immediately, to tantalise. I've been through here? Which track is this? Whereabouts on this track am I here? Where does this new junction sit? How far away is that other junction back to the {insert direction here}? Is that other junction to the left, or to the right? Is this that bend or that other bend?
To further heighten the adventure aspect of the sudden encroachment upon an existing track, I would often carry out this track-making with my face aimed at the soil in front of me. I wouldn't look up much, while trailblazing a new track. Therefore, I wouldn't know quite where I was, and I wouldn't be able to expect to run across an existing path. The surprise value would be somewhat magnified, this way.
My initial forays into the paddock would take a fair while, and I'd probably have three or four junctioning tracks surveyed by the time I was ready to move onto the next step. This next step was to take some of the more commonly used tracks (read : those close to the entrance), and go over them a second time. Perhaps I would make a particular effort to step in the gaps between the existing footprints, other times I would just follow the track again in a random fashion. Either way, the track would get another going over.
This wouldn't be done to all the tracks, oh no. Some of them, especially the more remote of them, would be left as minor trails, with the view of adding a little mystique, basically in the form of some untravelled 'backroads'. One of the major themes, in order for the project to be enjoyable and exciting, was variation. So some trails were left in their original, once-over, state.
Although the stages were never, necessarily, followed in the order I am giving here, it might be about now that I would don my town planner's hat. I'd set out for an area of the roads network that just happened to take my fancy, most often at a junction, and build a small town. This was accomplished simply by making some short tracks around the main road(s), to serve as town streets. Junctions were best to use for town planning, because that way the sidestreets had more chance of getting a little use here and there : they weren't just roundabout loops per se, but also served as alternative routes for getting to that other track that headed off in that other direction.
The towns might only have consisted of three or four little streets, although sometimes I would have waxed developmental, and created some larger centres. But there was more to creating a town than just adding a few lanes. Because it was meant to be a built-up area, the roads would be expected to be of a higher grade. So it was time to seal them.
'Sealing' (I just applied that term now, in 2001, not back when I was making the tracks) the roads involved a straightforward methodology. I would stand on the main track, at the entrance to the town, perpendicular to the usual 'direction of travel'. My feet would be side by side, as though I was preparing to dive from the high board (not something I've ever done, just more analogies). Then I would step sideways along the portion of track that led through the town. Assuming that the town opened up on my right, Iwould move my right foot two hoof-widths towards to the 'CBD', and place it down again upon the track. Then my left foot would be moved to be beside the right. This would flatten out one 'stance' of street.
I would continue with this operation until I had reached the opposite end of town, thereby creating a sealed road through the centre. This made the track almost impossible to miss, and created the illusion of population-driven development. Sometimes I would do all the sidestreets, as well, sometimes just some of them, and other times I would leave them as dreary old lanes. Whichever way, my town was now a town, at least in my book.
The town needed a name, and I would duly apply one, the inventing of town names always having been a favourite little past-time of mine. There were other things I had created using town names, including the Hoyton Street Directory, so I always had had a great number of hypothetical town names to choose from. So the little bunch of tracks with the sealed road through it would be dubbed something like 'Winton Park', which, from memory, was one of the first names I had applied to a paddock track town. Others included Nambular, Nanburton and Hoyton.
For some reason, I had never quite got into mapping the worlds in the paddocks, which is strange, seeing that I have loved maps, and the idea of mapping things, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So the town names were memory-oriented ... that is ... until I decided to signpost them!
Yes, more hypermediocrity, I created wee little signposts welcoming myself to my towns. Back at home, I would use strips of paper, about four inches across and eight inches deep. At the top of the page, in texta, I would write the name of the town. Then, armed with a bunch of these labels, I'd head back out to the towns. The paper would be stuck in the ground, with soil poured over the bottom three quarters of the strip to keep it down against the wind. The top, with the writing, would protrude. Clods placed behind the sign would keep it facing down the track, at a forty-five degree angle, so that upon arrival, one could look down and read the name of the hamlet they were entering. One would be placed at each entrance.
Now, as the tracks got a little older and more well-travelled (by myself), it becomes time to seal some of the major connecting roads. This would invariably start with the main entrance track. The same perpendicular stance and systematic flattening of the track is utilised here, too. On top of this, as the system becomes more developed, soon there is the construction of dual lane highways, done the same way, utilising existing tracks.
On a couple of the seasons, I went a step even further. I take an existing track, and dig into the soil of it, thereby lowering the level of the road. It becomes a sunken path, just perhaps a couple of inches deep. The earth removed, consisting preferably of solid clods, is placed at the side of the track, building up walls on the edge. I only remember doing this once, but it was a great project. I eventually had a section of road between two towns altered to suit this new format. This meant that I could slither and slide from one town to another, and nobody from home, or from the main (real) road, could see me in my travels.
It was slow going, both constructing the sunken road, and slithering along it, trying to keep my profile low and out of sight. It was probably even a harder job attempting to survive chastisement when lobbing back home, covered in dust and dirt, which had been rubbed emphatically into my clothes. But I have to presume now that it was well worth it.
The initial track heading out (north) from home, left a fenceline only forty yards or so to the left (west), but quite a bit of wide space ahead (north), and a hell of a lot of open space to the right (east) (and then a little more space to the north again). One memory of tracks made included a straight road, heading north, to the first town, which was named either Nambular or Winton Park. In general, the tracks would continue to be built out to the north and east, and many more towns would also be created. I can remember one very remote locale, possibly not even bearing sidestreets, that was based around a tall weed that I came across in the far reaches of the paddock. This locale was named 'Lone Pine'.
I would have taken mates out into the tracks once or twice, perhaps mainly Fatty. I doubt that visitors were anywhere as near as impressed as I was, with my work. It was a bit of a personal thing.
One of the more enjoyable aspects was to sneak out into the tracks at night. Wandering along the paths in darkness, using a torch to light the way, it was pleasurable to follow the tracks without being able to see the outside world, and having the torchlight show up the town signs.
A minor electricity line passed through the paddock, and wherever the poles were, there was a small grassed area, that the tractor never fallowed. These were treated a little like oases, and tracks invariably went to these knolls.
As well as the more straightforward tracks, I sometimes included little mazes, or just squiggly sections of road, simply for more fun. I could actually step across, with a broad step, from one track to another, because they doubled back so close together, but of course I wouldn't ever do that.
Once or twice I included a second entrance to the tracks system, with a new path leading from the east boundary of our property. On other occasions, I would include tracks that led through the other adjacent paddock, the one on the west side. At times, these tracks would lead to Market Street, way down towards the west end of the paddock. At least once the tracks led all the way to the Donald Road, and the small treed area known as Sheoke Park was also reached by tracks on some occasions. This area was about two hundred yards north-west of home, and was an oblong stretch of grass, with a ring of trees around the edge of it, and an old, shallow dam at the northern end.
I miss the old track-making fun.
Anyway, paddock tracks. Hope you enjoy :
Paddock Tracks Near Market Street Court Residence, Marnoo (Approx 1980-1983)
I used to spend hours and hours walking around the paddocks, first just stepping randomly, and then retracing the scarce tracks and flattening out an actual track. Not to mention adding the towns, the signs, the mazes, and even sometimes barriers for the sides of the tracks!
This activity will be described in a sort of recreation format, showing how I'd start a project, and how I would then build on it. Because the paddock is regularly fallowed ever year, and crops are grown in it, each of the worlds created had a very finite life expectancy! The following is an example of one such 'season'.
Generally treated as the main entrance, or launching area, of the tracks, was a spot just behind the yard that lay behind the driveway of the home I used to live in, on Market Street. I would wander past the fruit tree that was up the back of there, between that and the treehouse, and step over the wire fence, which was quite dilapidated and didn't take much stepping over. I vaguely remember there being a plank set down for ease in getting over, but I don't think that it was even required.
The short frontage of the paddock, probably only a dozen feet wide, maybe a little more, was sometimes a wee bit muddy, according to my best recollection. This seems odd, because if rain had made this area wet, then the weather would have been such that I would not have been so interested in getting out into the paddock. I don't specifically recall having wandered the tracks in poor weather, though I may very well have done so. Surely it would have been a better experience when the fallow was dry.
The most rewarding way to start the campaign was to simply step right out into the paddock, utilising a normal gait, and go for a walk. In a fallowed paddock, a standard walk would leave footprints, sometimes stark, and at other times sublime. The steps, with myself being in the chronoligical region that lays between child and youth, would most likely have been about a foot apart. On occasion, with the intent of adding more 'mystery' to the tracks for when I came back across them later, I might even have performed this early part of the project at a run, or a trot. This would leave more space between footprints. The result was that when I rediscovered a track at a later date, there was a bit of a challenge involved in following it, not to mention the excitement of finding out where it went.
Sometimes heading in straight lines, on other occasions implementing a higgledy-piggledy approach, bending both formally and erratically, depending on the mood each time, I'd bluster out into the wild grey yonder. Of course, I would change my method every few minutes, so that there was good variation. After all, the fun was going to be in the paths created, so they shouldn't by any means be too structured or predictable.
One of the best advents of making random directional changes, is that it became to hard to work out where I'd already been, which made for some pleasantly surprising accidental intersections. Wandering around, in the main haphazardly, I would occasionally come across one of my previously laid tracks. There was real excitement here, on two counts.
One was that I'd made an intersection, meaning that future travel along these tracks offered the glittering prize of options, a vessel for making decisions. If you have ever owned an electric train set, this can easily be elaborated on. One circular set of track for the train to run on is fun in itself, but doesn't compare to the hyperadvent of junctions, where you can have the train wander a different way to the direction that it took last time. The more junctions, the more options. More fun. A bit like a choose-your-adventure book!
The other benefit of coming across a previously laid track is based on the thrill of finding some, as yet undefined, place where I had already been. Questions would arise immediately, to tantalise. I've been through here? Which track is this? Whereabouts on this track am I here? Where does this new junction sit? How far away is that other junction back to the {insert direction here}? Is that other junction to the left, or to the right? Is this that bend or that other bend?
To further heighten the adventure aspect of the sudden encroachment upon an existing track, I would often carry out this track-making with my face aimed at the soil in front of me. I wouldn't look up much, while trailblazing a new track. Therefore, I wouldn't know quite where I was, and I wouldn't be able to expect to run across an existing path. The surprise value would be somewhat magnified, this way.
My initial forays into the paddock would take a fair while, and I'd probably have three or four junctioning tracks surveyed by the time I was ready to move onto the next step. This next step was to take some of the more commonly used tracks (read : those close to the entrance), and go over them a second time. Perhaps I would make a particular effort to step in the gaps between the existing footprints, other times I would just follow the track again in a random fashion. Either way, the track would get another going over.
This wouldn't be done to all the tracks, oh no. Some of them, especially the more remote of them, would be left as minor trails, with the view of adding a little mystique, basically in the form of some untravelled 'backroads'. One of the major themes, in order for the project to be enjoyable and exciting, was variation. So some trails were left in their original, once-over, state.
Although the stages were never, necessarily, followed in the order I am giving here, it might be about now that I would don my town planner's hat. I'd set out for an area of the roads network that just happened to take my fancy, most often at a junction, and build a small town. This was accomplished simply by making some short tracks around the main road(s), to serve as town streets. Junctions were best to use for town planning, because that way the sidestreets had more chance of getting a little use here and there : they weren't just roundabout loops per se, but also served as alternative routes for getting to that other track that headed off in that other direction.
The towns might only have consisted of three or four little streets, although sometimes I would have waxed developmental, and created some larger centres. But there was more to creating a town than just adding a few lanes. Because it was meant to be a built-up area, the roads would be expected to be of a higher grade. So it was time to seal them.
'Sealing' (I just applied that term now, in 2001, not back when I was making the tracks) the roads involved a straightforward methodology. I would stand on the main track, at the entrance to the town, perpendicular to the usual 'direction of travel'. My feet would be side by side, as though I was preparing to dive from the high board (not something I've ever done, just more analogies). Then I would step sideways along the portion of track that led through the town. Assuming that the town opened up on my right, Iwould move my right foot two hoof-widths towards to the 'CBD', and place it down again upon the track. Then my left foot would be moved to be beside the right. This would flatten out one 'stance' of street.
I would continue with this operation until I had reached the opposite end of town, thereby creating a sealed road through the centre. This made the track almost impossible to miss, and created the illusion of population-driven development. Sometimes I would do all the sidestreets, as well, sometimes just some of them, and other times I would leave them as dreary old lanes. Whichever way, my town was now a town, at least in my book.
The town needed a name, and I would duly apply one, the inventing of town names always having been a favourite little past-time of mine. There were other things I had created using town names, including the Hoyton Street Directory, so I always had had a great number of hypothetical town names to choose from. So the little bunch of tracks with the sealed road through it would be dubbed something like 'Winton Park', which, from memory, was one of the first names I had applied to a paddock track town. Others included Nambular, Nanburton and Hoyton.
For some reason, I had never quite got into mapping the worlds in the paddocks, which is strange, seeing that I have loved maps, and the idea of mapping things, since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. So the town names were memory-oriented ... that is ... until I decided to signpost them!
Yes, more hypermediocrity, I created wee little signposts welcoming myself to my towns. Back at home, I would use strips of paper, about four inches across and eight inches deep. At the top of the page, in texta, I would write the name of the town. Then, armed with a bunch of these labels, I'd head back out to the towns. The paper would be stuck in the ground, with soil poured over the bottom three quarters of the strip to keep it down against the wind. The top, with the writing, would protrude. Clods placed behind the sign would keep it facing down the track, at a forty-five degree angle, so that upon arrival, one could look down and read the name of the hamlet they were entering. One would be placed at each entrance.
Now, as the tracks got a little older and more well-travelled (by myself), it becomes time to seal some of the major connecting roads. This would invariably start with the main entrance track. The same perpendicular stance and systematic flattening of the track is utilised here, too. On top of this, as the system becomes more developed, soon there is the construction of dual lane highways, done the same way, utilising existing tracks.
On a couple of the seasons, I went a step even further. I take an existing track, and dig into the soil of it, thereby lowering the level of the road. It becomes a sunken path, just perhaps a couple of inches deep. The earth removed, consisting preferably of solid clods, is placed at the side of the track, building up walls on the edge. I only remember doing this once, but it was a great project. I eventually had a section of road between two towns altered to suit this new format. This meant that I could slither and slide from one town to another, and nobody from home, or from the main (real) road, could see me in my travels.
It was slow going, both constructing the sunken road, and slithering along it, trying to keep my profile low and out of sight. It was probably even a harder job attempting to survive chastisement when lobbing back home, covered in dust and dirt, which had been rubbed emphatically into my clothes. But I have to presume now that it was well worth it.
The initial track heading out (north) from home, left a fenceline only forty yards or so to the left (west), but quite a bit of wide space ahead (north), and a hell of a lot of open space to the right (east) (and then a little more space to the north again). One memory of tracks made included a straight road, heading north, to the first town, which was named either Nambular or Winton Park. In general, the tracks would continue to be built out to the north and east, and many more towns would also be created. I can remember one very remote locale, possibly not even bearing sidestreets, that was based around a tall weed that I came across in the far reaches of the paddock. This locale was named 'Lone Pine'.
I would have taken mates out into the tracks once or twice, perhaps mainly Fatty. I doubt that visitors were anywhere as near as impressed as I was, with my work. It was a bit of a personal thing.
One of the more enjoyable aspects was to sneak out into the tracks at night. Wandering along the paths in darkness, using a torch to light the way, it was pleasurable to follow the tracks without being able to see the outside world, and having the torchlight show up the town signs.
A minor electricity line passed through the paddock, and wherever the poles were, there was a small grassed area, that the tractor never fallowed. These were treated a little like oases, and tracks invariably went to these knolls.
As well as the more straightforward tracks, I sometimes included little mazes, or just squiggly sections of road, simply for more fun. I could actually step across, with a broad step, from one track to another, because they doubled back so close together, but of course I wouldn't ever do that.
Once or twice I included a second entrance to the tracks system, with a new path leading from the east boundary of our property. On other occasions, I would include tracks that led through the other adjacent paddock, the one on the west side. At times, these tracks would lead to Market Street, way down towards the west end of the paddock. At least once the tracks led all the way to the Donald Road, and the small treed area known as Sheoke Park was also reached by tracks on some occasions. This area was about two hundred yards north-west of home, and was an oblong stretch of grass, with a ring of trees around the edge of it, and an old, shallow dam at the northern end.
I miss the old track-making fun.
Landwaster 