Urban environments contain many forgotten spaces. Some are underground, or high in abandoned industrial structures. Some are deep within lands forbidden to the general public. Most of them can be reached and enjoyed only with determination and often significant risk. Others are right there, a few paces from busy public spaces yet still unseen and unthought of. These you often can simply step into with ease, and yet almost no one does. All of these secret places are rich treasures for the soul, each in their own way.

A few days ago I came across one of the 'in plain sight' secret places. Quite close to my home, right across the street from a major public facility, next to a busy rail line, by a road I've driven multiple times a week for years without paying attention. Just like everyone else.

A large vacant lot, mostly clear but with many trees. Fenced off with typical high wire mesh, heavily locked gate... but there are non-obvious points where you can simply walk in. If you make the mental leap of deciding you want to.

Nothing special, however the trees are mostly around the borders and visually shield the space from nearby public spaces. With the long untrodden wild grasses and weeds the result is a tranquility surprising for its contrast to the bustle only a few meters away.

In the past it's been used to dump piles of dirt and building rubble, but not recently. Now they are weathered and mostly overgrown mounds, objects of curiosity.

For a while I just wandered around, enjoying small visual pleasures.

The crinkles of a small dried out pond bottom. Sun-bleached old timber in a pile... hey actually that is some nice hardwood. I wonder if it will still be here next time I need to build a solid workbench?

About old hardwood — it is absolutely stable. It's long ago finished with any warping, and in my experience it generally has a beautiful texture once you plane away the weathered outer layer.

Then I came across this.

Hmm. Probably over a decade ago, someone has planted a seedling of a nice gumtree here.

I'm not sure of the species, maybe ironbark? Whoever planted it went to some trouble, setting up a really solid thick steel mesh cylinder to protect the seedling. It has two steel star-stakes pounded well into the ground to secure the mesh. Same with another one nearby in this vacant lot. Then they went away and forgot about the trees in their mesh protection.

Now the trees are grown large, still caged in their steel 'protection.' It's starting to strangle them.

This one also has the misfortune of a weed-tree growing at its base on the other side here.

As testimonial to the peacefulness and seclusion of this spot, that gray sheet stuff is a couple of old sleeping blankets some homeless person has hung up to dry. They have been hanging there untouched in the weather for a long time, now rotting to pieces. I left them there as a piece of micro-history.

But the steel mesh — that has to go. The weed-tree is intertwined with the mesh, so it can go too. No loss.

A few days later I returned with camera, small boltcutters and gloves. All these pics are from that day, and there is the mesh being cut off.

Cutting it was easy, separating it from the tree, pulling out the weed-tree, and getting the star stakes out, not so much. Trying to pull out stakes that were well-pounded into the ground long ago never works. Best you can do is work them back and forth till the steel work hardens then breaks. Do it right and the fracture point is well below ground surface. But it's a pain.

The second tree, same story except no weed-tree latched onto it. Much easier to remove the mesh, and the first star-stake.

The last star-stake of the four though, oh boy, that one was more trouble than all the rest of the day's work. So typical, it's always the last one...

There's an effect when trying to snap a steel bar by bending, where the area being bent work-hardens, then the bending just migrates further along the bar. This one was in soft topsoil, and that started happening. After a while I gave up, and thought maybe in such soft soil I could pull it out. I tried pulling on it while working it back and forth. Nothing doing. Maybe if I use more pulling force? I scrounged around and found some old fencing wire, tied it through a hole in the stubborn stake to one of the other free stakes as a lever, applied much more extraction force. Nope. Kept trying that while working it back and forth. Nope. Nope... By now I was soaked in sweat and needed a rest. Quit for a while.

Next tried digging down (using another stake) and making a starter cut with the mini-bolt cutters. They are really too small and weak for this, plus in the cramped small hole I couldn't get much of a cut into the steel.

After a lot more bending the stake back and forth, it finally cracked through. After maybe an hour on just that one last blasted stake.

Stubborn even in defeat! The photo of the hard-won broken end failed, thanks to the spot of sunlight and me being too exhausted to get it right.

Free at last!