The clues all add up:

• Australia Post mail box, and post office;
• Herald Sun sign on shop;
• a leafy green road with two lane road, wide enough to overtake on;
• and green painted traffic signal masts, which Whitehorse City Council loves to do.

So somewhere in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne – but where?

Unfortunately this is the first time my “nothing good happens east of Punt Road” policy has failed me, so I had to phone a friend – who suggested the Mitcham Road shopping strip in Mitcham.

And boom – there it is.

Google Street View

But try as I may, I couldn’t find the same parked cars found in the Google reCAPTCHA scene in the images captured by Google Street View, no matter what date I picked, which leads to the question – where is Google getting their reCAPTCHA images from?

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This doesn’t look like a road, does it?

But in September 2019 whoever was driving the Google Street View car that day decided to head down there.

Driving from Lilydale towards Mooroolbark via the rail access track, and being overtaken by a train along the way.

But that wasn’t the only time Google drove down the access track – in May 2021 they approached it from the Mooroolbark end.

Driving through the trees.

This giant boghole wasn’t enough to stop them.

But thankfully the driver wasn’t stupid enough to drive onto the road-rail vehicle track access pad.

But soon enough the access track returned to rail level, just as a train approached from behind.

The train crept up quickly.

Soon level with the car.

The train slowing getting the edge.

But with six carriages, it took a while to overtake.

And then it was gone.

It was also the end for the Google Street View car – today happened to be the day that a track gang was at work beside the railway line, and their cars were blocking the way towards Lilydale.

So presumably the Google Street View car had to sneak back the way it came, an embarrassed driver at the wheel.

Footnote: off for a drive

You can follow the Google Street View car yourself – here is the route it took along the railway line.

Footnote: and another Google Street View sighting

Here we see a young railfan beside the Frankston line, waiting for the next train to pass beneath the Dane Road bridge in Moorabbin.

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Some background

Adelaide Airport is located approximately 6 kilometres from the Adelaide CBD.

With the suburbs of Brooklyn Park and West Richmond under the approach path to the main runway.

Approach lighting directs aircraft towards runway 23.

Airservices Australia – YPAD Aerodrome Chart

But the airport land ends just a short distance away from the runway threshold.

So the approaching lighting continues beyond the airport fence.

On the hunt for approaching lighting

The first set of approach lights are found at the corner of Morley and Trennery Street, on a piece of land fenced off from the public but outside the airport perimeter fence.

Turn 180 degrees, and you’ll find a another gantry holding approach lights, this time just sitting beside the nature strip.

Heading along Trennery Street, you’ll find a set of lights wedged between two houses.

A few doors down is an short fence on an empty block of land, and a set of runway lights at the rear.

Around the block on Ralph Street, there is a set of lights in a backyard.

And another on the block next door, which no longer has a house on it.

Next door the runway light is in the front yard.

Down the street is another gantry just chilling on the nature strip.

And few houses along I found the last set of runway lights – on a double block of land with a short fence preventing public access.

All lit up at night, they look like this.

Photo by Airport Electrical

So who owns the land?

The Adelaide Airport master plan details current and future aircraft approach lighting situation.

Aircraft approach lighting is operated and maintained by Adelaide Airport Limited (AAL). The approach lighting is located at the ends of the Adelaide Airport runways, extending into residential areas at West Richmond for Runway 23 where such lighting is generally held under easement or by ownership of specific allotments.

The long-term continuity of this lighting in the vicinity of the current sites is aligned with aviation services at Adelaide Airport. It is possible that such lighting will be replaced with more efficient systems within the next 20 years.

AAL has purchased freehold land outside of the airport site to ensure the long-term protection of the runway approach lighting corridor. Additional land will be secured as it becomes available. The freehold land is not subject to the airport lease arrangements or Airports Act regulatory framework.

The parcels of freehold land are indicated on the master plan map.

And include:

• the three parcels I’ve already identified on Trennery Street and Ralph Street,
• one parcel on Lyons Street which is empty,
• and a parcel on Britton Street which adjoins the airport.

The most recent acquisition appears to be 17 Ralph Street – older Google Street View imagery shows the runway lights in a backyard, not an empty block. The property was sold in June 2017 for $325,000.

Another hut

In between houses on Press Road in Brooklyn Park I found another aviation related building – an Airservices Australia equipment hut.

Located around 1000 metres from the end of Adelaide Airport runway 23, I suspect it houses the instrument landing system (ILS) ‘Middle Marker’ beacon transmitter.

More lights on Marion Road

Over on Reddit someone mentioned that the high voltage power lines along Marion Road also have aircraft warning lights atop them.

A total of 10 power poles have them – stretching from Brooklyn Avenue in the north to Knight Street in the south – seen here with a Qantas 737 flying overhead.

And another lucky Google Street View catch

Back in September 2019 the Google Street View car was driving down Lyons Street in Brooklyn park where it captured something interesting in the sky.

A plane on final approach

A Jetstar A320 to be precise.

Coming in over the the houses.

And in to Adelaide Airport.

A technical footnote

The Airservices Australia Aerodrome Chart lists the following approach lighting at Adelaide Airport.

Runway 05: HIRL MIRL
Runway 23: HIRL MIRL HIAL – CAT 1 HSL
Runway 12: MIRL
Runway 30: MIRL

Notes:
– HIAL non-standard 4 bar system
– HIAL CAT 1 aligned with ILS GP

Translated into something resembling English.

HIRL: High Intensity Runway Lights
MIRL: Medium Intensity Runway Lights
HIAL: High Intensity Approach Lighting System
HSL: Hold Short Lights

And ILS GP:

Instrument Landing System Glide Path

Sources

• Adelaide Airport charts, Airservices Australia
• Adelaide Airport master plan

Further reading

• Adelaide Airport: a brief overview of its history by the West Torrens Historical Society
• Planespotting in Adelaide at Weekend Notes
• Adelaide Airport at spottersguide.net

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Nicole Cleary photo via The Age

On the trail

The massive pylons and quad bundle conductors look just like those on the 500 kV twin circuit Moorabool-Portland transmission line I wrote about the other month.

I’ve been a fan of this transmission line for years.

The lush green grass suggested dairy country around Mortlake, not the wheat fields of the Pleurisy Plains.

But there was one big clue – the pair of transposition towers in the background.

A transposition tower is a transmission tower that changes the relative physical positions of the conductors of a transmission line in a polyphase system. A transposition tower allows these sections to be connected together, while maintaining adequate clearance for the conductors. This is important since it distributes electrical impedances between phases of a circuit over time, reducing the problem of one conductor carrying more current than others.

Double-circuit lines are usually set up with conductors of the same phase placed opposite each other. This reduces the reactance due to mutual inductance; the reactance of both circuits together is less than half that of one circuit. For example, a section of a line may be (top-to-bottom) phases A-B-C on the left, also phases C’-B’-A’ on the right. The next section may be B-C-A on the left, also A’-C’-B’ on the right. Therefore, the rotation on each side of the tower will be opposite.

But would a set of transposition towers be big enough to spot on Google Maps?

And away I go

My initial theory was that the photo couldn’t be taken *that* far from Melbourne or off a main road – normal people don’t go driving for hours down bush tracks just to photograph power lines – so I made a virtual visit to the Moorabool Terminal Station outside Geelong.

Google Maps

My first location of note on Google Maps – a hub of activity outside Cressy, where the transmission lines were being repaired.

Google Maps

Six pylons came tumbling down to earth in January 2020 following extreme winds.

ABC News photo

The outage shut down the Portland aluminium smelter, until temporary repairs were completed to allow power to be restored.

The Standard photo

Then off across empty plains until Lismore – where I found two parallel single circuit pylons.

Google Maps

But this wasn’t the transposition towers I was looking for, but somewhere I’ve been meaning to visit in person – the spot where the 500 kV line crosses over the single circuit Ballarat to Terang 220 kV line.

Google Street View

As I continued west, the paddocks started to turn green, and I found another place I’m yet to visit – Mortlake Terminal Station.

Google Maps

And the fossil gas fired Mortlake Power Station that relies on it.

Origin Energy photo

And finally something that matched what I was looking for – a pair of single circuit transposition towers in the middle of a twin circuit transmission line, outside the locality of Willatook.

Google Maps

Following Google Street View along Malseeds Road found the transposition towers.

Google Street View

But given the transmission line turns to the right before reaching the transposition towers, I needed to head west – Willatook-Warrong Road was the next road to take.

Google Street View

Now to see if it was the same set of pylons.

Nicole Cleary photo via The Age

And boom .

Google Street View

A match!

And one last detail

The little sign in the background of the original photo looked like a ‘Danger: Gas Pipeline’ sign, but the only gas network diagrams I could find lacked sufficient detail to confirm.

AEMO gas pipeline network map

And over at Open Infrastructure Map the only feature at the location was the 500 kV transmission line I’d been following since Moorabool.

Open Infrastructure Map

So an adventure for another day.

Further reading

Some more detail on the 2020 transmission line pylon collapse at Cressy.

• AEMO Preliminary Report – Victoria and South Australia Separation Event – April 2020
• AusNet Services cost pass through application – July 2020
• Energy Safe Victoria incident report – November 2020

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At first I was looking at the most up to date imagery of the address – from May 2013.

I was able to step back in time to November 2009, where I found an abandoned KFC restaurant with a ‘For Sale’ sign out the front.

And by stepping back further to January 2008, the KFC store was still open for business, selling greasy chicken.

As for why I was chasing up KFC restaurants on Google Street View, you can find the end results in my post on closed down KFC stores of Melbourne.

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