[PROJECT] The Sydney Conquest.

[Briggs]

Hello Local Guides Connect,

Back when I introduced myself in May 2017, I stated the following:

“I love to share experiences and a first-hand view of an individual who explores every nook and cranny, leaving no stone left unturned.”

That’s my core mantra and one of the reasons why I stand here as a local guide today. Since discovering the effects and the wonder that is Google Maps and its community, I started attending various meetups, from Alex’s photowalk to Timo’s burger crawls. In my spare time I like to explore my surroundings, visit new places, take snaps along the way and make valuable edits.

A week ago, @HelloSamsonR asked me to show a screenshot of how much of Sydney I’ve been to, and so because I take photos everywhere I go, the following heatmap was produced:

That’s a lot of walking around and public transport. I don’t drive by the way. And that’s exactly what I do, on Saturdays and Sundays I veer to a new place or suburb I haven’t mapped or been to before, explore all its hidden gems and leave no stone unturned. The best part is that in a week’s time I’ll be moving to a better central area of Sydney: Parramatta, which will provide all access to everywhere available by public transport. For some people, public transport would be the last thing they would ever catch. For others, it’s a good time to escape, relax and meditate.

Anywho, below is the main concept of this project I like to call, The Sydney Conquest.

What this ambitious project aims to do is to conquer Sydney by visiting every single suburb that is at least accessible to public transport, from all the way north to Wyong/Tuggerah, down south to Shellharbour, and spanning east from Manly all the way across to the Jenolan Caves/Lithgow to the West. There are going to be massive areas where I won’t be able to visit as I don’t drive yet, but this will prove to show that everywhere is possible as long as you’ve got time and heart.

As already seen above, those are all the places where I’ve taken pictures. I do a substantial amount of walking every single weekend (usually 30,000 steps each day). Here I’ll be able to provide progress shots and comparisons on a regular basis, so this main post will be updated as I go.

I’m not exactly sure when I’ll visit where, but with all the time in the world and a recent transition from full-time to part-time employment, I’ll be able to go wherever my heart or Zumba leads me. At the moment I have the next two weeks off work to actually pursue what I want to do (studying fitness in Meadowbank) and also to establish my base of operations in the heart of Parramatta, five minutes walk from the main transport interchange. So I will be completely enabled to go on my adventures and visit all these new places.

Below will be a map that I will aim to complete for as long as it takes.

Wish me luck fam!

[Ravi_Kiran]

Good starting and detailed guiding is very impressive. Its not only your experience or hard work. But also tips for every one. Your work is our tips. good continue my bro @Briggs

[HelloSamsonR]

Excellent @Briggs . This is superb.

[OSAMA]

“no stone left unturned”

** @Briggs **

[Briggs]

Thank you @Ravi_Kiran , @HelloSamsonR and @OSAMA .

Once I finish Sydney, I will make sure to go on trips and eventually get to meet all the different Local Guides all around the world! You can count on me for that, yay! Thanks for your support and fellow inspiration!

[HelloSamsonR]

@Briggs Which city are you joining for the Worldwide Map Edit Walk in Australia? Do you know @Osaka78forTRUMP is having one at Perth?

[Briggs]

Actually @HelloSamsonR , Sydney didn’t end up hosting a worldwide map edit walk. Perth is a little bit of a distance to travel to, but wish I could. Alternatively my aim is simply just to go on a very comprehensive walk for the entire day (probably this Saturday), make a note as to how many edits I started with at the beginning and then how much I end up finishing after.

[HelloSamsonR]

This shows you are participating as well :). I think we can include your name in the cities. And you are also attending as well, please provide your city details @Briggs .

[Osaka78forTRUMP]

Definitely join in, Briggs. You will be inspired to keep your Sydney Conquest going for a long time. Link us into your meet-up page when you get approved. PS Extra kudos for using public transport

Kindest regards from Osaka78

[DiAnaUS]

Wow you quite the traveler @Briggs , very impressive! I’m sure you’ll complete your conquest in no time! Journey by foot is so much better than journey by car, you get to better explore and appreciate places

[Briggs]

Not quite the traveller I want to be yet @DiAnaUS ! But since my sister has finally returned from Vietnam, she’s given me back my powerbank and now I can really go on long adventures without the risk of my battery being depleted.

I just submitted the meet-up Osaka! I’m not sure if anyone might physically be present as it’s only a few days in advance, but I’ve also encourage to participate in this walk by just making robust edits and verifications where they see fit.

[TraciC]

@Briggs Woo! That’s amazing. Question: how did you create your heat map? I’d love one for myself.

[Briggs]

Hehe thank you @TraciC !

Well, it’s not really a heatmap first of all, it’s pretty much just a map of all the places I’ve taken pictures of. I got it through the desktop version of Google Maps. The issue is actually trying to load 2000+ photos onto the map which can result in a lot of lag and even crashing at some points. So when the thunder icon for lite mode appears, I just click in, and then do a ton of scrolling to load all the way to my first picture I ever uploaded, 3000+ photos later.

Lite mode is better because less information and smaller-sized pictures are cached and loaded onto the map, so it doesn’t really slow it down. But… 2700+ photos later and my laptop crashes. Bummer. I can also see on the Google product forum that something that shows the location of all photos on Google Maps has been requested by a lot of people. Maybe something to look into instead of trying to load every single listing manually?

[TraciC]

@Briggs Ah, thanks for the response/info. It’s definitely a feature request I’ve submitted, so I recommend submitting that here and on Google Maps, too, for extra votes.

[OSAMA]

My vote with you @TraciC , @Briggs

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@TraciC wrote:

@Briggs Ah, thanks for the response/info. It’s definitely a feature request I’ve submitted, so I recommend submitting that here and on Google Maps, too, for extra votes.

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[Briggs]

Hello Local Guides Connect! Here’s an update on the last 50 days of my Sydney Conquest.

Notable Events

• Penrith to the west has been fully conquered, as well as a part of the Blacktown-Penrith area where it splits (Oxley Park, North St. Mary’s, etc.)
• Plenty of Richmond Road from Dean Park towards Blacktown has been taken.
• The Hills District shopping centres have been visited and mapped.
• The main sections however that has been impacted the most are the Granville-Auburn areas (which were covered by July’s geo-walk) and a straight beeline down from West Ryde to Rhodes. Between West Ryde, Parramatta and Auburn, because of living in Parramatta temporarily and also starting my studies at TAFE Meadowbank, everywhere in-between has been conquered and visited very comprehensively (except Olympic Park, I don’t know why I haven’t gotten around there yet).
• Further to the East of the Sydney CBD, I slowly crawl towards the beaches, thanks to last weekend’s Hidden Gems walk.

Further Notes

Evidently, it seems as if three of the pins disappear. This includes one near Marsden Park, one close to Rouse Hill (South) and one in Guildford. These are actually examples of listings that actually closed over time. There’s a period where the listing will remain for a while, but then once Google Maps it’s satisfied it won’t return again, it will delete.

I do appreciate the updated interface and look of Google Maps though! It took a while for me to get used to the additional, stronger white stroke in the text, but now I do appreciate it well as it makes everything look crisper. The pins look nice, and the suburbs convenience disappear if there’s a pin nearby or overlapping it. Great effects!

It’s not the most work I’ve done over time, but in finally achieving a part-time arrangement, I can actually progress on further onwards to high and far places! I’ve also been going up to the Central Coast, but since this is an SC (Sydney Conquest), I’ll focus mainly on the Sydney metropolitan area.

[Osaka78forTRUMP]

Dear Briggs, hope all’s well. Amazing update. Very inspiring. Thank you for letting us know about your adventures. Kindest regards from Osaka78

[Briggs]

Hello Local Guides! It is I, Briggs, returning with another update for the Sydney Conquest.

It has been a rock solid 100 days since I first started. Besides the last ten days in which I’ve hit an incredibly difficult roadblock, I have covered a considerable amount of land mass, and doing the best I can with each and every adventure outside my doorstep. It’s starting to become Summer in Australia soon enough, so because of the searing heat I might not be able to go out as much, since my phone overheats too often. As expected, here is the current animation and notes from my last update, 50 days ago.

Notable Events

• Filling in a bit of the St. Mary’s and St. Clair area pretty much means that only Glenmore Park, South Penrith and Werrington are left to conquer west of my area that isn’t past Penrith.
• Blacktown to Parramatta has been pretty much overrun by red pins! Lalor Park, Toongabbie, and along the Great Western Highway are left to complete that section.
• A date(?) to Watson’s Bay ended up mapping a whole section of the eastern beaches finally walking down to Bondi. When shall I go to Bronte to see the Sculptures By the Sea?
• I have pretty much covered the proximity of where my college is, going north to Carlingford and Epping and a bit further north up to Belrose and Forest Lodge. I’ve also reached the end of the Richmond line train to the Northwest, stopping at Richmond, and then gradually heading back via Windsor and Riverstone.
• Continuing on where I left off from the Sydney Worldwide Map Edit Walk, I joined the frivolous link from Strathfield all the way back to the Red Yard Entertainment Centre, essentially meaning that I have fully walked the distance from Parramatta all the way to Strathfield! I have also almost joined the link up north to Rhodes heading to Concord West, and ventured a little bit south to Enfield.

Further Notes

There seems to be a stray pin downwards to Cronulla, which I haven’t been for probably fifteen years now. That is the Domayne furniture store that I visited back in July, and it looks like it has erroneously been moved to Taren Point. There is already a Domayne - Caringbah there, but it looks like it has been massively maligned with a badly filled-in address. Google Maps refuses my correction immediately, so another one bites the dust, and straight into the ‘not applied’ database it goes! Please fix this atrocity, as Domayne is a very popular store.
The incorrect address is 123/103 Parramatta St, Taren Point NSW 2229.
The correct address is 103-123 Parramatta Road, Auburn NSW 2144.

Memory loss

In addition, you might be wondering why the pins changed from white going back to the black hole in the pin. That is because I loaded all 6,000+ photos on Google Maps Lite Mode. Every time I was upwards of loading 5,000 or so photos, the browser would crash because it ran out of memory. So unless there are changes to just load the coordinates of each of the pins without loading the pictures, I’ll have to continue loading these heat maps to avoid the memory crash error.

Concluding remarks

At the moment, I’m at a standstill. While the majority of my edits go through immediately as not applied, this is a massive discouragement, which is hindering me from venturing to new places and fulfilling my passion. I get hung up trying to add new places, I can barely correct names, categories and map markers, and so until there is news that improvements are made or trust is regained via the algorithms or artificially, the Sydney Conquest will be postponed until further notice.

Please vocalise your support in gaining my trust back so I can make edits quite freely once again. We shall see the next update when there is noticeable improvement to my trust level as in I can make any edit again without it being immediately not applied. Should it return back to normal, our next update will be at the 150-day mark, December 10 2017. Let us keep going, and never grow weary of adventure.
Unless of course, this happens.

All love,

rickasaur.

[Osaka78forTRUMP]

Nice, @Briggs . Looking forward to looking into your record keeping on Google Sheets. Never seen any Google Maps user pouring heart and soul into suggesting edits like this. Legendary Briggs, the legend grows. What’s next for Sydney Conquest?

[Briggs]

Thank you @Osaka78forTRUMP ! While my record keeping is actually on a separate spreadsheet at this moment in time in my Numbers app, I will eventually migrate it into Google Sheets for ease of sharing. I’ll also include graphs, charts and trends as well, using sheer numbers and also the logarithmic scale.

The legend grows, but is right now surmounting the challenge of fighting the not applied dragon! I do not know yet whats to come yet. Since the summer is drawing closer, it would be an excellent time to hit the beaches. Oh and probably the whole Southwest could get a little editing love, I’ve looked around Liverpool, NSW and it’s currently a hot mess. Venturing down to Macarthur, probably Southwest further to Camden and Narellan, Liverpool Fashion Spree, and probably a bit more detailing to Cabramatta and Canley Vale (possibly).

And I’ll tell you something, when it comes to taking pictures of restaurants and looking at menus, Chinese and Vietnamese people are extremely suspicious and fussy about what you’re doing especially when taking photographs (they also stare at you profusely), because two weeks ago when I was in Flemington I got chased out of the restaurant being accused as a competitor. They’re also extremely packed all the time. So they’re going to be very difficult. Unless it’s just the one singular restaurant in a suburban area (like in Western Sydney), it’s pretty easy, hehe!