It's time for yet another suburb full of new apartments. Rhodes.
The bridge spits you out at a strip of "park" which hugs the coast all along Rhodes.
Heading southward, I found myself in a modern park-type area called "The Connection". Here was Rhodes' library, some event venues and some sculptures/seats/toys/art/not sure.
Feeling quite fatigued from spending the day suburbsing, I stopped at this high ceilinged, naturally lit cafe, "Bare Wittness", for the fine Aussie invention known as the flat white.
I'm no coffee connoisseur (I've been known to regularly drink Nescafe Blend 43) but I definitely enjoyed my flat white while sitting and being blinded by the afternoon sun reflecting over Parramatta River.
After refilling my energy-o-meter I was ready to head into the "real Rhodes".
High density living is a bit of a contentious topic in Sydney. Many say that filling the city with new apartments is an eyesore, while many believe that Sydney needs to move up rather than out.
Regardless, in my view anyway, Rhodes is high density done right.
There's no denying that Rhodes is absolutely packed with relatively homogeneous apartments.
Here's some old houses that were accidentally left behind. That mistake is soon to be rectified and I assume more apartments will be put in their place.
However, I think the suburb balances its high density living quite well. Rhodes has a load of parks and man-assisted nature to counteract the large residential footprint. Even the roads out here are quite quiet in terms of cars (at least they were while I was out here). Perhaps this is due to the walkability of the suburb and how central the train station is to Rhodes.
As an aside, this park was temporarily made famous in 2016 when it became a Pokemon Go hotspot. I remember coming here and seeing what had to be over a thousand people all standing here in the dead of night, staring at their phones in relative silence. It was a sight to behold. Here's an article about the phenomenon if you're interested.
As well as apartments and parks, there's a (smaller than you'd think) number of Asian restaurants near Rhodes station which fill the air with some great smells. I definitely need to pencil in a dinner date out here some time soon.
This woman was making wheel cake. I don't know what that is.
Before heading back though, I had to head to one final destination.
Rhodes has a fairly large shopping centre in the middle of the suburb.
You're not allowed to steal their trolleys.
They lose some trolleys anyway (this was back at the Pokemon Go park)
But if you're not a local, there's one reason and one reason alone to come to this shopping centre.
Ikea!
The smell of Ikea and it's flatpacks triggered stressful memories of furniture shopping after moving out of home, we probably visited Sweden's pride and joy half a dozen times in about a month. The real reason I had to drop by today though was to sample the finest hot dog $1 can buy. I like mine with extra mustard, as you can see.
Satisfied, I strolled back to the station via this path parallel to train line, accessible from a back exit to the shops.
Rhodes
The thick apartments of Rhodes had been teasing me all day from Olympic Park and Wentworth Point. I finally made it across, over from Wentworth Point, by crossing the fairly new Benelong Bridge on foot. This bridge is only accessible to buses, cyclists and pedestrians, which gives the bridge a "community" feel, rather than purely acting as a piece of infrastructure.
The bridge spits you out at a strip of "park" which hugs the coast all along Rhodes.
Heading southward, I found myself in a modern park-type area called "The Connection". Here was Rhodes' library, some event venues and some sculptures/seats/toys/art/not sure.
Feeling quite fatigued from spending the day suburbsing, I stopped at this high ceilinged, naturally lit cafe, "Bare Wittness", for the fine Aussie invention known as the flat white.
I'm no coffee connoisseur (I've been known to regularly drink Nescafe Blend 43) but I definitely enjoyed my flat white while sitting and being blinded by the afternoon sun reflecting over Parramatta River.
After refilling my energy-o-meter I was ready to head into the "real Rhodes".
High density living is a bit of a contentious topic in Sydney. Many say that filling the city with new apartments is an eyesore, while many believe that Sydney needs to move up rather than out.
Regardless, in my view anyway, Rhodes is high density done right.
There's no denying that Rhodes is absolutely packed with relatively homogeneous apartments.
Here's some old houses that were accidentally left behind. That mistake is soon to be rectified and I assume more apartments will be put in their place.
However, I think the suburb balances its high density living quite well. Rhodes has a load of parks and man-assisted nature to counteract the large residential footprint. Even the roads out here are quite quiet in terms of cars (at least they were while I was out here). Perhaps this is due to the walkability of the suburb and how central the train station is to Rhodes.
As an aside, this park was temporarily made famous in 2016 when it became a Pokemon Go hotspot. I remember coming here and seeing what had to be over a thousand people all standing here in the dead of night, staring at their phones in relative silence. It was a sight to behold. Here's an article about the phenomenon if you're interested.
As well as apartments and parks, there's a (smaller than you'd think) number of Asian restaurants near Rhodes station which fill the air with some great smells. I definitely need to pencil in a dinner date out here some time soon.
This woman was making wheel cake. I don't know what that is.
Before heading back though, I had to head to one final destination.
Rhodes has a fairly large shopping centre in the middle of the suburb.
You're not allowed to steal their trolleys.
They lose some trolleys anyway (this was back at the Pokemon Go park)
But if you're not a local, there's one reason and one reason alone to come to this shopping centre.
Ikea!
The smell of Ikea and it's flatpacks triggered stressful memories of furniture shopping after moving out of home, we probably visited Sweden's pride and joy half a dozen times in about a month. The real reason I had to drop by today though was to sample the finest hot dog $1 can buy. I like mine with extra mustard, as you can see.
Satisfied, I strolled back to the station via this path parallel to train line, accessible from a back exit to the shops.
I'm not sure what role Jen played in organising my hot dog but apparently I made the right decision.
Home time.
Rhodes: An example of Sydney giving high density city life a red hot crack (and pulling it off).
There's a very different section of Rhodes which is well worth a visit. Perhaps have a look at my experience in Facebook at https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid08JWfR5ZSK6VWBYwmeKLyNWGJbYLL4z9dxa4gkj3Dw8ePsCpjEq5C9e2dAzsDjLkGl&id=530527021&mibextid=Nif5oz
ReplyDelete