I’ve been plugging away at the post-redaction cleanup of the Brisbane area for a couple of weeks. The really handy rebuild server at

• http://rebuild.poole.ch/job/29

has been the guide.

The end is in sight, only 8% of the tiles (about 400 to go), but they are proving rather tough, so it’s slow going.

Does anyone have some spare time they can chip in so it can be completed?

I've spent a few days up at Conondale National Park, and following the walk/camp extravaganza, went out to survey Maleny township. Got quite a bit done, road names, roads alignment and so on; sadly I ran out of time and have missed Reesville in the south west. Another day... probably with a 4wd though, as some of the roads around that district only barely merit the name :-)
osm.org/go/ueHd4Q5

Completed a survey and mapping around Villeneuve in Queensland, Australia, (at the top of Lake Somerset near Woodford). This took a lot more time to survey than I thought for some reason, in fact two visits before it was done. The existing maps of the area are very poor, (Whereis.com, Google etc), and seem to be based of the DCDB cadastral layer from the State Government, which is downright wrong in a lot of places. Because of this the OSM map of this area is now definitely the most accurate!

The Stanley River, Delaney Creek, Sandy Creek and Stoney Creek waterways are still not mapped very well; although there is some hires Bing imagery to work from, the ABS2006 admin area boundaries follow the watercourses around here quite faithfully, and I'm a little hesitant to mess with the admin boundary stuff... Anyone want a crack at it?

osm.org/go/ueHGSzp

Have just completed updating Morven and Augathella in Queensland, Australia from my survey notes and traces. Morven has great bing imagery, so I added in the buildings in the town as well.

Augathella, had quite poor imagery though; worse than Yahoo used to be. I did what I could with what I had there. Interestingly the DCDB roads were very much at odds with the reality on the ground. The gazetted roads probably just didn't get built as they weren't required :-)

Augathella: osm.org/go/ucUa9zOX
Morven: osm.org/go/ucSW9jlD

Had a couple of days in Charleville, Qld, Australia and got some surveying done. I needed a vehicle to get anything meaningful mapped, and so rented a 4WD from Avis. This meant I got a couple of trips in to Augenthella and Morven with the GPS on the dash as well.
Had a brilliant time out there, if you get a chance go visit! Am Still updating the map data over the next few days, but the result so far is at
osm.org/go/uW6@q90z--
I've probably made a few errors, as my notes got a bit scrappy towards the end, please give me the heads up if you spot something wrong!

I've had a look at the Qld Protected areas boundary dataset from Sep 2010 and am looking at moving towards a manual import. I've documented things here:
osm.wiki/Australia/Queensland/The_Department_of_Environment_and_Resource_Management/Protected_Areas_Import
and would welcome feedback.

I went for a walk around Brighton Qld today. The plan was to add the local parks into OSM, but also to use the Garmin Dakota route feature to wander between them.

Brisbane City Council lists the parks for this suburb here: http://goo.gl/j3JLY so I entered the approximate locations into Garmin Basecamp as waypoints, and asked it build a route as a pedestrian between them. Once the route was on the Garmin, I set off. Sadly it seems the route didn't follow the road on the Dakota, (it did in BaseCamp!), Maybe it was in 'direct' mode between waypoints, (and the OSM map loaded on there probably wasn't routable).

Anyway I got the parks, and then had a couple of issues with tagging the three woods that comprise 'Brighton Wetlands' , Pimelea Woods, Dianela Woods and Goodenia Woods.
They shouldn't be tagged as natural=wood because they are managed - which leaves forest.. a little over the top for a city suburb I thought. natural=wetland,wetland=? seemed a better fit, but what to tag the wetland=? as - nothing seemed suitable :-(

In the end I tagged them as Nature Reserves... still not convinced that's correct though.. Any suggestions gratefully received!

Here's a picture of the signage on one of the woods:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brighton_Wetlands.jpg

OSM map: osm.org/go/ueGmejMt

Well, it's raining. a lot. In Queensland! I felt it had put paid to plans for a) doing my laundry, and b) strolling around doing some mapping with my new toy the Garmin Dakota 20 GPS.
Or did it...
Laundry was done, due to a friend having a tumble dryer, (not exactly a must have item in Queensland normally - but it saved the day today!), and I also got some mapping in as I drove round with the GPS to correct some "No-Name" street errors around Kingston 4114.

I quite like the Dakota 20, even if the touch screen is pathetic compared to an iPhone, but it's useable.

I do, however, really, really miss the Potlatch option of having the NearMap imagery. I think it got removed last month. Please OSMF and Nearmap, please sort it out; I want Nearmap back. I actually had to walk round a park to trace the perimeter with the GPS today, things were so much easier with Nearmap :-)

I've also just got the OpenStreetMap book by Frederik Ramm and Jochen Topf, so I'll have a read through over the coming days and find out all the things I should already know...

I've finished up the remaining survey required for Campbell's Pocket Road Queensland, (I had missed a bit of the road last time, and that has a couple of other minor roads running off it as it turns out).

On the way out there, whilst in Dayboro getting pies from the bakery (!), I noticed a commemorative permanent survey mark on the site of the old railway station - placed there as part of the Q150 celebrations last year - here's a couple of pictures of this Dayboro Survey mark:
http://j.mp/9qdgJz
http://j.mp/9MI4QE

Location:
S27 11' 44.96"
E152 49' 31.40"

The plaque mentions this website http://sssi.org.au/q150 - and that site has a PDF of all the survey marks placed in Queensland, along with the tagline "Everywhere for Everyone"... the dataset is copyright though and unsuitable for import into OSM :-(

The one I found could be added though - but how to tag it?

I've had Blackbutt and Benarkin Queensland on my 'want to map' list for quite a while, and managed to get there and do them yesterday. I was very surprised about how poorly the Queensland cadastral layer DCDB-lite rights of way reflects the actual roads and tracks on the ground around here. I imagine it's because a lot of old logging roads fell into disuse but are still rights of way. Had a couple of annoyances, one down South of Blackbutt on Waterhole Gully Road; I had to abandon mapping it as a water splash was too deep for me to attempt in the car :-( Hate it when that happens; as some part of the road is now 'incomplete' ;-) Also, I abandoned the trace for the road leading west of Nukku North Road in North West Blackbutt. The road seemed to peter out a bit to a track, and also the road name is strange 'Ulampa Creek Road' because there is another road about 10km North East, with the same name (that one comes off of Old Esk Road). All in all pretty pleased with this mapping session though :-)

I uploaded the GPX trace from last weekends 200km Audax ride around Esk in the Brisbane River Valley Qld (The ride was called the Moonlight Wander). Tough ride - lots of hills, and my power to weight ratio just wasn't up to it. Still, completed in time with a couple of hours to spare, finishing in a thunderstorm no less :-) Not many new roads for OSM came out of the trace, just a couple around Haden.

Not much time today, so a drove out to Samsonvale to get some of the missing roads around Kobble Creek. I think I've mostly succeeded in filling in the blanks of the map there, except for Pringles Road had a ford across the creek which I didn't want to risk in my battered old car. So have left Pringles Road as a "fixme" for another day.
The cemetery at the end of Golds Scrubs Lane is odd, a clearing in the nature reserve, right at the lakeside; the council keeps it well trimmed, but there is nothing around there at all (I think there used to be a church and a school before the North Pine Dam flooded the area).
osm.org/go/ueGN96M

A country drive to get some more GPS traces around Lowood, Qld today. That blank spot on the map to the East of Lowood has been grating at me for a while now; well that blank bit turns out to be the Forest Hill-Fernvale road :-) Here's the general tracing area:
osm.org/?lat=-27.4691&lon=152.5594&zoom=13&layers=B000FTFr

Also discovered a fantastic viewpoint today as well, at the top of Freeses Road, ( -27.506, 152.592 ), incredible views. From the road signage on the way up (a blue sign, white lettering saying hanggliding ?), this appears to be a hanggliding launch spot as well; although I couldn't work out how to tag it, or where exactly they launch.

Whilst in New Zealand I managed to get a trace of some rail lines at Featherston on the North Island - not sure how to deal with the adjacent 6km long rail tunnel though. GPS lost signal inside, of course, so I have drawn a straight line between the entrances to the tunnel and tagged it as rail tunnel:
osm.org/go/urHCKgp
Strangely it seems as if the tile rendering missed the Featherston rail extension I added, it's not showing at all.

Have also spent a little trace time with the Nearmap imagery of the Rail Yard at Redbank in Queensland, there's still a lot more to map there, it's going to take a while, but what's been done now is quite pleasing to see it rendered :-)
osm.org/go/ueDaIt66K-

Road trip out along the D'Aguilar highway to Boondooma Dam to see the campers has meant I bagged some more useful GPX traces. Managed to get some of the streets of Proston mapped, then Beer and fish and chips at Hivesville pub courtesy of Eric and Denise. Hivesville BP station is present and correct (reviewed some others from BP.com bulk import along the way).
I have tried to map bridges along the D'Aguilar highway as I went and have marked them on the map.

I also took a side trip to Emu Creek/Clancys camping area south of Blackbutt/Benarkin to get the 16km road through the forest mapped along with the camp areas themselves:
osm.org/go/ueFOJxmc
But something is wrong with the tagging at Emu Creek I think though, the campsite is not rendering.

Some standout points were the old timber bridge across Sunday creek on the Gayndah-Hivesville road is really pretty, quite out of the way:
osm.org/go/uc7y3tJS4--
maybe a good place for a GeoCaching cache ?
Hivesville pub is great as always.

Some unanswered questions :
How do you tag an ambulance station? Fire and Police are catered for, but not ambo?
BP think they have two stations in Kilcoy, I could only find 1.
The BP station at Blackbutt also proved elusive, couldn't find that one either.

http://www.brisbanevalleyrailtrail.org.au/
The 7km BVRT Toogoolawah to Ottaba section opened at the end of November 2009, so I thought I'd ride it with the GPS and map it for OpenStreetMap / OpenCycleMap.

Firstly though, I rode the Coominya-Esk section. I turned back a bit shy of Esk, as at the junction of Ulyatt Road/Gatton-Esk Road the BVRT gate had been wired shut and was insurmountable, with a Qld Transport "authorised persons only" sign. I thought I'd got to the end of the BVRT open section! Actually, this was a few kms short, disappointing. Looking at the BVRT website afterwards, this section is supposedly 'open' so I should have just jumped the fence and gone on to Esk.

At Toogoolawah the rain was nice cooling, (I was in the car for the big rainstorms that came over!), and was surprised that you can continue on the trail south from Toogoolawah, past Ottaba, almost all the way to Esk. I imagine they only 'opened' 7km to Ottaba as there is potential vehicle access off the Brisbane Valley Highway there for those not wanting to do a "there and back". I carried on until I found a bridge closed at
osm.org/go/ueE5FeXa--
-27.1809,152.4067 that stopped me getting though. In fact I tried to get across the gully, but it was wet, I slipped, and smashed the bike derailleur :-( This meant cycling back to Toogoolawah with only 1 gear which I found fairly tough!.
Have now mapped all the gates and crossings on this trail section, so I'm keen to see how OpencycleMap renders this.

A big tip to anyone doing this section, take your swimmers. The Toogoolawah section starts/ends right next to the public pool on Factory Road, so cycling/running the trail and having a dip at the end would be great idea!

Oh dear, OCD strikes. It was bugging me and so I went back out and mapped Cedar Creek Road :-)
osm.org/go/ueGMpmIL-?layers=0B00FTF
I'm glad I did as the swimming hole is great there, and I mapped Andy Williams park 3/4 of the way along the road which has public BBQs, worthy of note. I was also interested to see the land release that's happened at Morrison Road; 5-25 acre blocks going from $375k - osm.org/go/ueGJ2@NK - awesome views- wouldn't mind living there....

As I'm not able to make the mapping party at Samford on the 16th,
(see osm.wiki/Samford_Mapping_Party_January_2010 )
I've volunteered to try and do a couple of pieces of the cake before then. I went out and surveyed a bit North of the village (segments B&C of the cake), and was pleased as I managed to get all the Street names today.

Luckily, the Waste transfer station was open, so I managed to get a trace of it's service roads; but I was unsure what to tag it with. I ended up with this:
osm.org/go/ueGLPYw7j--
But perhaps this is more relevant to a recycling plant than a waste amenity?

Looking at the map now, I wish I'd gone up Mcdowalls Road and Cedar Creek Road (slightly North West of Eatons Crossing Road junction with Mount Samson Road, left hand side), too. I had partially surveyed a couple of streets there previously and it would be nice to get it all correctly tagged up. Currently OSM has Mcdowalls Road as this disembodied road not connecting to Mount Samson Road North of Yugar, I'm pretty sure that should connect! Will get that another day.

Good luck to everyone on the 16th when you blitz the rest of Samford :-)

Raining today (in Queensland!), so bike riding was out, and I had access to a car. So took off on a jaunt to get a trace for the village of Dayboro in Queensland, which hasn't had much OSM attention as far as I could see. The mechanics of surveying alone in a car turned out to be harder than I thought; in fact I'll probably resign myself to do just do each area twice as I just can't get the names of streets down in a way that I can understand later on when keying in the data. I tried waypoints and notes, and photographs, neither were, ahem, foolproof; so I've lost a bit of the naming data from today.
Nice drive though, nice place.
osm.org/go/ueGZoOe5-

A number of sections of the BVRT are already open, including a new section at the end of November.
The rail trail has a website at http://www.brisbanevalleyrailtrail.org.au it's not yet been mapped: osm.org/go/ueEzWh

I'd be keen to map them, it seems OSM has nice tags for RailTrails already : osm.wiki/Australian_Tagging_Guidelines#Rail_Trails

So... anyone up for a bike ride?

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