Kalinda Modified Urban Forest, Kalinda (North Ringwood) Vic

‘Marica Close, North Ringwood, seems like just another short, dead-end street when the visitor turns into it' wrote journalist Graham Betley in 1992. 'But at the top of the rise a whole new vista opens up.

‘The street ends at the boundary of the Kalinda modified urban forest, an eight-hectare area of parkland with a central rotunda. The views over the park extend all the way to Mount Dandenong.’ 

Graham Betley ’Uninterrupted views of magnificent backdrop’ Melbourne Age 12 August 1992 p. 37

Kalinda - if that really is a place name and it's not just North Ringwood - only became properly suburbanised in the late 20th century and I think it's fair to assume that the Kalinda Modified Urban Forest owes its existence to local concern about the elimination of treed open space for the sake of the luxurious houses erected hereabouts. A plaque in the space (which I didn't actually see, but of which the article linked below contains a photograph) says the first plantings were in 1988.* 

This (above) is what I suppose you'd call the main entrance at Marica Close, though there is also a pathway entrance from Holroyd Crescent (below): 

Below: a bunch of fences on the north side of the space, almost all with gates leading in:

(To be honest I can't even see the gate in this fence, above, but I wouldn't have taken the picture if there wasn't one!)

Above: Looking towards the centre of the space. 

Above: Holroyd Cres end looking north

Above: Holroyd Cres end looking south

Above: The fence dividing the space from the school grounds at the east end. 

Above: And from just within the school grounds, looking in to the space. (BTW it was two days before Christmas, school holidays!).

I didn't go to the south boundary of the fence as the woman with the dog you can see in a couple of the pictures was in that area and as should be clear by now, to not mess with members of the general public is one of my mottos. 

A fairly similar stroll to mine is captured here, but as mentioned above I didn't see the commemorative plaque.

Google maps link.

* I can't find any information anywhere about the Friends of Kalinda, mentioned on the plaque, but there is a character called Kalinda in The Good Wife and she has friends, so naturally this reality would push out anything else to do with a Melbourne suburb, friended or otherwise. 

Bluegum Park, Youngtown, Tasmania

It is difficult to upload my 2002 photos of Launceston internal reserves as they are glossy prints more suitable to scanning than re-photographing, which is all I'm able to do in the current pandemic. Here are four images of Bluegum Park from 9 February 2002. 

And here are images of the same space on 6 February 2020: 

 Locate it here. 

Reserve between Miller St, David St and Syme Crescent, O'Connor, ACT

View it here. 

This is apparently the only survivor of the umpteen internal reserves the Griffins originally intended to sprinkle throughout Canberra. How it came to be built and how it has come to survive is a mystery. Its interior has a very pleasant rural atmosphere and evidence of occasional, but not concerted or frequent, use. 

Syme Crescent - the lamppost signifies the entranceway. 

Entrance. 

Same entrance - there's only one, apart from gates from backyards. 

Visited 8 December 2020.