I'm so Fancy: Paddington

I've always been a bit cynical towards the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, but this suburb here really challenged my prejudice. Grab yourself something to drink folks, because this is another long one.

Paddington

Sitting immediately South-East of the city, you might be surprised to hear that one of the ways to get into Paddington is by walking through the extremely "bushy" Trumper Park. Crossing through from Edgecliff, that's how I got here today.

No, this isn't Lane Cove National Park, this is is Inner-City Sydney.

Eventually, the park clears, and terraces start to appear.

When I say the park clears, it's all relative. These gorgeous and clearly very old trees show that even though there are houses here now, we definitely are still in the bush.

My immediate goal was to head to "Fiveways", an intersection of five streets which acts as the centre point to the suburb.

That meant continuing along through the thickly-leafed residential streets of medium density houses and cars with European badges.

Concerningly, it seemed like steep steps were in my future.

On the way, I did pass this Southern-European-feeling house with these very pretty flowers growing next door.

I was eventually forced to concede to some stairs and wound up with an aerial view of the neighbourhood I had just strolled through.

Once I had conquered Mt Paddington, the flavour of the suburb started to change. Rather than a forest with some houses in it, this end of Paddington is the less extreme leafy-terraces that you come to expect in Inner Sydney.

Interestingly, at the time of visiting (early November 2018) there were still a fair few campaign signs left up from the recent Wentworth by-election. (Spoiler: The Libs lost one of the safest seats in the country).

Just nearby I saw Dogman and friend enjoying a cuppa on their scooter. This seemed as a good a place as any to take a quick break for a sip of my water.

Continuing on, this is where Paddington starts to get hoity-toity.

Attached to the fancy terraces are plenty of upper-class shops that don't reveal what they actually are until you go inside.

And check out these sweet knockers.

Here's some more fancy terraces with expensive cars outside.

Eventually I did reach Fiveways, which is actually this nondescript roundabout.

The actual draw of Fiveways though are the super-coot cafes all around. Seems like a very pleasant place to enjoy a $23 quinoa salad.

Even the Woolworths here has tried to pretend it's an organic grocer or something.

I passed the Fiveways cafes and entered the terrace-topia that is the remainder of residential Paddington.

This block of "racial-harmony" terraces I thought were particularly lovely.

I used up my ornate-quota in Petersham, but Paddington houses are pretty ornate as well. (Maybe it's a P suburb thing? Stay posted for the ornate statuses Pendle Hill, Punchbowl and Penrith).

Eventually the residential streets lead me to the famous Oxford Street. While the western side of Oxford Street is famous for Pride Flags, sex stores and tumultuous nightlife, the eastern side (the part claimed by Paddington) is a much more reserved affair.

The first thing that you notice are some beautiful older buildings which are still in use, such as the town hall, post office and even the local pub.

Paddington's Oxford Street, however, has one main claim to fame, and that is Paddington Reservoir.

As the name suggests, this is a now-retired reservoir which currently serves as a unique oasis in Inner-city Sydney.

I absolutely love this place.

Further up the road are the heritage listed Victoria Barracks.

I thought it was best not to stick my camera through the fence to take a photo of an army base in front of the Australian Federal Police, so instead here's a picture I nabbed off of Wikipedia to show you what the barracks look like.

Attribution: Nick-D on Wikimedia Commons 

I backtracked to head further West on Oxford Street (I'm not sponsored by Coke, I promise.)

Up here, I passed by this interesting church-cum-fashion store which is not something I've seen before,

as well as another Dogman, this time taking a photo. I looked up what these statues are, and apparently they're works by artists Gillie and Marc. Whatever the the hell they are though, they definitely do liven up the place.

This church here is one of the final points of Paddington's Oxford Street. This one apparently sticks to selling religion rather than clothing.

Oxford Street continues further east. Sadly, the road eventually stops being Paddington and leads into the next suburb.

Paddington: If a tourist ever asks you for some lesser-visited areas to spend an afternoon in, send them here.