Abandoned ways

When I go walking on the ridge where I live, I have tended to frequent the area to the right of my house. I avoided going to the left side valleys as there were previously homeless people living there. The only time I have been to that part before was the day I went chasing the the thief. I was told that there were stairs on the ridge but I hadn't seen them. On Tuesday, I decided to go that way and see what it was like. I found the stairs:

Rather overgrown, this is the least damaged section - some parts have large invasive bugweed trees growing between the stones. This was once a walkway linking different parts of the suburb but it is no longer used as people living at the edges of the hill closed off access as the houses had become easy targets for criminals and there were frequent robberies. These days, it's difficult to access the hill, which has made it safer. Homeless people have occasionally made encampments among the rocks because it is somewhat safer for them to sleep there than on the streets although the fear of snakes keeps most away. There are snakes around, I have found snakes in my house twice but they aren't a threat to anyone.

The day I was chasing the thief, he suddenly disappeared and now I know why. He must have hidden in one of the storm water drains. There are two small valleys, formed by eroded faults in the rock layers and two drains. When I went to take this picture, I was surprised at how warm the air emanating from the pipe was, probably because it runs below the road. Kids have often drowned playing in storm water pipes like these as our rainfall comes in the form of thunderstorms with large amounts of rain in a very short time that cause flash flooding in the pipes.

Quite a large effort was made to build this old walkway, you can see the drill-marks left from cutting this rock face and it's a shame that it has fallen into disuse. One the other hand, it makes my place safer, peaceful and the hillside is left only to people like me, thieves and guinea fowls. I went to check to see if the homeless camp was still around but it seems to be gone. I'm glad because this has been the source of the fires every time for the last 2 years

The disused and overgrown man-made structures make the hill look very desolate, especially in winter but I will go and explore the other side further another day. There are some very interesting views and rock formations on the other side of the valleys