kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

September is rapidly approaching! Last year [community profile] flaneurs did a September challenge, and I think it was pretty successful! The basic idea was that people wanting to participate would leave a comment saying which city they wanted to walk in, and then other community members would suggest some starting points for a walk in that city.

I'm not going to have time to organise this for this year, but if anyone else would like to step up and do it, please shout! All you need to do right now is make a post giving instructions (it's fine to just copy last year's), then keep an eye on the comments and try to make sure that everyone who asks for a prompt gets one (it's the latter part that's the most time-consuming). Then after September is over, the final task is to make a roundup post linking to everyone's reports. (I'm happy to do the posting-out of prizes afterwards, it's just the online stuff I'm not going to have time for.)

Edited to add: oh, and you'll also want to make sure that people's challenge posts are appropriately tagged — nearly forgot that part. This not only helps people find things in the future, it also helps when writing the roundup...

kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

Oh dear, it's January, and I still haven't done the September challenge roundup and presentation of prizes. Better late than never!

Here's the list of who did what — please let me know of any errors or omissions.

Congratulations to everyone who completed the challenge! If you would like a prize, please email me at kake@earth.li giving a postal address and which prize you would like (choose from a badge, a postcard, and stickers — all [community profile] flaneurs-themed).

spiralsheep: Einstein writing Time / Space OTP on a blackboard (fridgepunk Time / Space OTP)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
Dear [personal profile] kake, I did hypothetically, accidentally, win at your September challenge... if we include both the extension into October and the fact I wasn't actually aiming at the Much Dewchurch part of the challenge (oh, we do like to be be ciderpiano!). I know you're busy so no comment or prize necessary (as ever). Photo for the curious:

1 image of lovely placenames and reflections )
kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

Hello lovely [community profile] flaneurs! I just wanted to apologise for having been a bit absent recently. Things have been piling up, and I'm struggling to keep on top of them. I haven't forgotten about you all, and I haven't forgotten that I have prizes to send out to people who completed the September/October challenge. It just might take me a little while to find the time to get organised and do it.

I hope you understand, and I hope you don't mind too much that things have been a little quiet around here. (There's no need to worry about me, BTW — the things that have piled on me are good and fun and exciting things, there are just too many of them.)

I have been wondering if it would be good to have a co-admin for the community. It doesn't involve much work. Someone from the southern hemisphere would be ideal, since I'm in the north and it's a bit dark and grey here this time of year. But if you're interested, do let me know, even if you're also currently experiencing winter...

kabal42: Merlin walking towards Camelot - text "Towards my destiny" (Merlin - Towards my Destiny Merlin)
[personal profile] kabal42
[personal profile] kake challenged me to a walk from Domus Vista (or alternately from one of the old city gates). Well, I did it in mid-october on a lovely, sunny day! The full report is over here! First challenge completed :-) September challenge, done in October and posted in November. Timing, I seem to not have it. I hope you enjoy anyway.
sanguinity: woodcut by M.C. Escher, "Snakes" (Default)
[personal profile] sanguinity
For the September challenge (extended into October), [personal profile] kake suggested starting at the Hair of the Dog brewery. Hair of the Dog is in the eastside industrial district, one of the older parts of Portland, but on the neglected, eastern waterfront (as opposed to the prosperous, western waterfront). The neighborhood is centered around a set of railroad tracks, and if it once had direct access to the water, it doesn't now -- the interstate runs at ground level between the neighborhood and the water. [1] There isn't much through-traffic in this neighborhood, either: every downtown bridge across the Willamette River passes overhead, skipping the neighborhood altogether.

So if you're envisioning a neighborhood dominated by overhead bridges and interchanges, with many older warehouses that were built around the railroad tracks and the waterfront but no longer have proper access to either, and which can't quite figure out if it should remain a working industrial area or if it maybe has a future in post-indusrial lofts, breweries, and art galleries... then you'd be envisioning it about right.

I've spent a chunk of time in the neighborhood throughout the years: the science museum and the opera offices are both at the southern end of the neighborhood, one of Portland's queer centers has had a space not far from Hair of the Dog, I used to have regular professional dealings with various businesses down there, and there was a period that I used to regularly cut through the neighborhood on foot to get to the bridges because I didn't want to pay downtown parking. But even though I'd been in and through the neighborhood many, many times, all that's different than just having a ramble for a ramble's sake.

So, seeing that today was the last day of October, and it was silly to have not gotten around to it for two whole months, today I went down to the Eastside Industrial district and rambled around for a while, filling up the memory card on my camera. I had a perfectly lovely time, too -- thank you, [personal profile] kake!

ramble with photos behind the cut )


[1] "The" interstate, hah! This district is where I-5, the Seattle-to-California route, and I-84, the main route east out of the state, meet up. Once upon a time, the western side of the river was also dominated by a freeway, but that freeway was taken out and replaced with Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Some years ago, a multi-use path was put in on the east side of the river, too -- the Eastbank Esplanade, designed to link up with the westside park for a waterfront multi-use loop -- but the presence of I-5 makes it tricky to access the Esplanade from this neighborhood, even though it's just a hundred yards away. (return)
spiralsheep: The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity (ish icons Curiosity Cures Boredom)
[personal profile] spiralsheep
This month I was challenged by [personal profile] kake to visit the Cider Museum in Hereford. Naturally, I managed to walk past almost ALL the Hereford with the exception of the Cider Museum.

I've only been to the city twice before but I have a theory that Hereford is the closest point of overlap between Terry Pratchett's Discworld and our roundworld. The chained library in the cathedral is only the beginning....

My report is at my dw journal:

http://spiralsheep.dreamwidth.org/372640.html (7 images)

(Yes, I've seen the kind modly extension but I reject it and embrace my failure! And I'd already written my report....)
kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

A few people have said that they aren't going to have time to complete the September challenge before the end of September. It would be a shame to let all those starting points go to waste, so: you have until the end of October to complete your September challenge.

And there will be Flâneurs swag for everyone who manages it.

rydra_wong: Fragment of a Tube map, with stations renamed Piero della Francesca, Harpo, Socrates and Seneca. (walking -- the great bear)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
[personal profile] spiralsheep gave me the Crystal Palace dinosaurs as a challenge.

I'd never visited the Crystal Palace dinosaurs before. Obviously (for "in my brain" values of obviously), the only right and proper thing to do would be to walk there from the Natural History Museum dinosaurs.

Because I am not completely masochistic, I decided to divide the walk into stages, breaking off and picking up from points where I could escape onto public transport.

Herewith, my report.

Cut for length and photos )
marymac: Noser from Middleman (Default)
[personal profile] marymac
Right, so, [personal profile] spiralsheep  gave me three old mill chimneys. Finding myself dog-sitting a hyperactive mutt on the appropriate side of the river for one of them, my glamorous assistant and I went for a walk. Twice. Because I can find my way back to anything but the getting to is sometimes an issue and I may have gone the opposite direction to where I thought I was going. I thus did it slightly backwards, but it was a nice meander round Pottinger Ward, and the dog made lots of new friends, so. This was my technical start point, Owen O'Cork Mill:

Mill chimney against sky

Because we were dead close already, I went for cutting from Woodstock onto Beersbridge - two main roads and some side streets over. First time I did this I failed to read the map properly and went the wrong way, heading over to the Ravenhill Road instead. The dog, however cute, was singularly useless as a navigator:
Navigational failure, mills, terraces and small blurry dog. )

I have a mad plan for the other two, but that's for next week.
kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

How are people getting on with their September challenge? Anyone (other than [personal profile] bob) done the walking part and just need to get around to the writeup?

Conversely, anyone struggling? In want of a bit of cheerleading and/or motivation? Leave a comment if so and we'll see what we can do to help.

kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

Just a quick reminder that you still have time to sign up for the September challenge, and you still have time to add more suggestions for people who've already signed up. The more suggestions each person has, the more likely they are to be able to pick one that suits their needs, so don't feel shy about suggesting additional possible starting points for people who already have some.

kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

OK! So I mentioned there would be another Flâneurs challenge, and here it is.

The instructions for the June challenge were relatively complicated, so I decided to do a simpler one this time.

To participate in the September challenge:

  • Leave a top-level comment on this post, stating the name of the city/town you'll be doing your challenge in. (You can leave more than one comment if you want to walk in more than one place.)
  • Wait for September, during which time hopefully other community members will reply to the comment as described below, giving you a selection of starting points for your walk.
  • Once it's September, pick one of the starting points you've been given, do a walk of any length or type starting from that point, and report back.

To help others complete their September challenge:

  • Choose one of the top-level comments on this post which contain the name of a town/city.
  • Use an atlas, online map, etc, to select a starting point within that town/city. You can choose a point that you think will result in a pleasant walk, a challenging walk, a walk that's likely to produce a report that you'll find interesting, any criteria you like.
  • Leave a comment specifying your chosen point, and optionally the criteria you used to choose it.
kake: The word "kake" written in white fixed-font on a black background. (Default)
[personal profile] kake

Hello! Just a brief admin note that there will be another challenge happening soon — I've mentioned it to a couple of people already and they didn't tell me it was a ridiculous idea, so I'll be going ahead with it :)

Sorry I've been a little absent recently, but I've not had much spare time over the past month. Hopefully I'll be able to post up the challenge properly within the next couple of days.

In the meantime, anyone been on any good walks lately?

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flaneurs: A person walking along an urban riverbank, above graffiti of a cartoon person with white skin and long wavy red hair. (Default)
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