Beautiful links. It's amazing to see how much and how little some things have changed. View Mount Rd in Glen Waverley, for example, doesn't run all the way down to Ferntree Gully Rd. The Police Academy is still Corpus Christi RC College. The loop around the brewery in Abbotsford isn't noted, because there was still a road through the brewery complex. And there are no freeways, only highways.

Reminds me of the walks I used to take through the Village Croydon drive-in. I would walk from school, on the Maroondah hwy, to my then-boyfriend's house deep in the Croydon burbs. We would first walk through the deserted and maladorous Croydon Motel grounds with its torn curtains and algae-infested pool. As far as I know it was still trading in those days, although I don't see how they could have had any customers except the kind who might also patronise the truckstop-nightclub between the Macdonalds and what was some kind of lumber yard. From there we would walk through the empty gates of the drive-in and take a trek through the forest of speaker poles. There was always the odd condom or so on the asphalt. The final part of the journey was a scramble over my boyfriend's family's backfence with a school bag and saxophone case.

During the summer between year 12 and uni we went for an exploration deeper into the drive in lot. Behind the second screen we found the foundations of an old house, with a garden tap and small, gnarled orchard. It was, I guess, once a farm. There were poplar trees and crabapple trees, too. When the motel and drive in were closed down a retirement village was built there, called The Orchard or something.