Though
not our most exciting conquest, it's a conquest none the less and deserves some
mention even if only as a footnote to what we do.
In order to understand what I'm talking about here, you need a basic understanding
of the locations geography. Downtown Oakville is divided in half with a huge
river called 16 Mile Creek, separating West Oakville from East Oakville.
The creek is actually a huge river that empties into Lake Ontario. Oakville
was originally a ship building town and all of the ship yards were located at
the mouth of this river. So it's a fair sized 'creek'. The town itself is rather
level ground but suddenly drops off when you reach the creek.
Now in the downtown area
there are two bridges that connect east from west that begin before the drop
off so they're pretty high up. In between the two bridges are the Oakville Library's
Central branch and the Theatre of Performing Arts.
So
here we go:
Day 1 -
Next to the library sits the Oakville Theatre for the Performing Arts. The two
buildings look very similar as they were built at the same time, by the same
architect, on the same plot, funded by the same government...come to think of
it they're probably connected together via underground tunnel...anyways, they're
is a bridge next to the theater that crosses the river and you can access underneath
it.
While
exploring the Oakville Public Library and seeing how we'd be able to get up
on the roof, (which we did a week later I think) EvolvingFucker and I found
another area of interest.
Because the two buildings are built on the above mentioned drop off, the building
goes down with the drop so you can enter the library and exit at the bottom
of the drop, where lies the endless span of docks, parks and parking lots.
We were walking around the lowground area exploring the buildings when we came
across the underbelly of one of those bridges I mentioned. EvolvingFucker
and I didn't go this spot to walk on the catwalk at first though. At the time
we were trying to see how the punk town kids get passed the barbedwire fence
protecting the area where the bridge connects to the top of the cliff to drink
and be merry in the shelter it provided. After doing some exploring of the fence
we realized that they just slipped in at the top of the fence, as the picture
show's us doing) and climbed in through there. Realizing we achieved somewhat
of a victory, we then realized that the area under the bridge held a bit more
- A Catwalk that ran the length of the bridge to the other side of the creek.
Seeing this as another fun, though arguably pointless, romp we decided to walk
across it in a simple "from point A to point B fashion". However Day 1 of this
adventure sucked as we realized that since the catwalk was close to the harbour,
many of the rich bitches of Oakville sitting in their boats would be able to
see us walking across the catwalk which could've been trouble. It was decided
we'd return another day.
We were disappointed but kept our heads up as we knew we'd be back and we'd
succeed.
Round 2 -
Maybe
a few days after we had been at the library exploring and such, we returned.
This time joined by or occasional infiltrating friend, Ryokirah.
The three of us were eager to get this thing done and would do it no matter
what. Fortunately for us the 'boat people' were not sipping their martini's
and there was little way for us to get caught or seen at that time of day. We
went through the fence like we did the last time and we were off.
The catwalk's not super high over the ground but a fall would certainly hurt
and the picture probably doesn't do the drop much justice.
Anyways, we started our way
across the catwalk and we realized it would be a little bit tougher than we
thought; seeing as the catwalk is near the parking lot of the library we found
ourselves ducking and lying down hiding from time to time as people were leaving
or chatting in the parking lot. This was more of an inconvenience than a setback
and sort of added to the fun somehow as we had to duck and proceed all the more
quicker like ninjas...
I was at the front of the pack, and as we neared the end of the catwalk we realized
that unlike 'point A', the end of the catwalk became engulfed in a metal walled
room. I could swear I saw something that looked like the legs of a person from
the entrance. I must've been about 30 feet away from the area I was looking
at, and it was in the shadows that I saw this image so I wasn't sure if it was
my eyes playing tricks on me or if I was looking at some form of metal piping
or what...but as we neared I saw it was a teenage couple. Apparently the bridge
is used for some "special hugging" by the Oakville teenage crowd and they seemed
as surprised (and quite embarrassed) to see us as we were to see them. The guy
coolly asked for a cigarette as the girl tried to put her pants back on, claiming
that it was to fight the heat. mm, yes. We politely said "just passing through"
and left them to do their business. We proceeded on our way laughing about what
we had just seen. And as we neared the end we saw the ultimate anticlimax. Had
we gone on the OTHER side of the catwalk we would've seen this entrance way
(see picture) in the fence and wouldn't have to crawl through the top of the
fence like fools. I was then pissed off that 1. There was a much simpler route
and 2. That though going across the catwalk wasn't the ultimate in being a 'bad
ass' or exploration, but any sort of renegade feelings had about the adventure
were destroyed when we saw the two teenagers on the catwalk as we realized it
wasn't entirely "our bridge" that day. Still a fun day though, and gives another
tale to tell...and most importantly, The catwalk was an integral thing to our
infiltration as it was the first thing we did in that regard and got the ball
rolling.
- Shame of All Nations