canadian hill continued..

There were strange rustic pipe-like branches ( up to diameter of 40mm) protruded from smooth sandstones at places. At first I thought they were sort of oxidised rusty iron rods/bars. But they crumbled into powders when hammered with a stone. These strange criss-cross 'branches ' structures apparently were very common in the hill sandstone outcrops and similar ones were locate at near beaches. No one knew what they were and I could not remember anyone mentioned about them or anyone bothered to ask. [As late as 95s, i rememberd taking some pics of them when I revisited my hometown. I asked (via internet) around the world and a Canandian expert emailed back telling me they were fossils remants of marine animal's burrows - trace fossils. ] which means once-upon-a-time, the top of the canadian hills were submerged in sea!* ( no wonder seashells were presented in some part of the hill.)
Instead of heading towards to the water- fall, there was another narrow path on the right which lead to a diesel powered oil well. You have to climb on all 'fours' and hold on to the shrubs/tufts for support while pulling yourself up. I used to throw stones down the ravine and watched them ricocheted off the rocky surfaces. We found a way down there and had brought back sticky clay . We wrapped them in large green Simpoh - imitating the local market of using them to wrap taufu. To support and maintain the oil wells that dotted the canadian hill, a series of network of dirt roads were built. Along these deserted road 4-5" dia. metal pipe were located at ground level. We chanced upon one that brought us all the way to Oil Well #7 and back to my Primary School ! Numerous trips were made to explore more of these dirt trail and I found another interest pretty sandstone outcrops and named it "pretty stone". Soon a sketch of the visited trails were penned. [ a few years later I was thrilled to see my sketch matched up with a detail published map of the Town and the neighbourhood]




*in fact the whole of miri were under 200 metre of Sea water eons years ago ( more on this much later) with few spots above water - small parts of canadian hill....