Anniversary Special Stop 6: Telopea

The wild ride is almost coming to a close. Here's the second-last stop of the Carlingford Line.

Telopea

Much like Dundas before it, Telopea is a relatively anonymous residential suburb vaguely in the Parramatta area. It's also immediately north of Dundas, meaning that it's not far to walk from one to the other.

The border of the suburb straddles this lovely bit of parkland which is actually a continuation of The Ponds Creek and Walk which we stumbled upon back in Dundas.

This being Australia, it goes without saying that you need to agree to an eighteen page terms and conditions document in order to use the park.

The nature-y bit backs out into Sturt Park, featuring all the normal stuff,

but also a skatepark.

As I left the park, I couldn't help but appreciate the great Aussie gum tree dotted all around.

This led me to Telopea's local shopping strip.

Of interest here is this pizza place which also does Middle Eastern baked goods, coffee and prawn crackers,

as well as this little viewing platform set up across from the shops where you can sit and... look at the shops I suppose.

There's also an IGA with a long and tumultuous modern history.

This IGA used to be a BI-LO when I knew it back in the 90s. This was then rebranded as a Coles some time between 2006 and 2008 when Coles rebranded all their BI-LOs. The Coles was unsuccessful and it became a Franklins. Franklins was subsequently acquired by retail company Metcash who turned all Franklinses into IGAs. What a journey.

Anyway, that's enough supermarket history. The shops back out onto the tree-lined streets of residential Telopea so I continued on.

The biggest observation with this part of Telopea is the amount of public housing. There is quite a large handful of housing commission blocks all through the area.

Also here is Telopea's own little community garden, proving that this sort of thing can exist outside of the Inner West.

Following the street all the way up soon led me to Telopea train station, stop 6/7 on the Carlingford Line.

You know the drill by now.

On the other side of the tracks is another small shopping strip, but nothing to get too excited about.

Back at the side of the station that I started on, I passed this wily gang of pigeons to head north towards my next and final Carlingford Line suburb.

An interesting thing about Telopea is that running parallel to the train line is this long patch of grass that you can walk along if, for some reason, you've decided to walk to the next suburb instead. Naturally, this patch was my vehicle of choice.

On this grassy walk, I could see that I was clearly skipping the private housing bit of Telopea, with the backs of plenty of modern units and townhouses making themselves known.

Bonus call out goes to this adorable graffiti on the fence stopping you from walking onto the train tracks.

I continued uphill, along this unusual path, until I eventually crossed the suburb's northern border into the final Carlingford Line suburb.

Telopea: BI-LO and Franklins; lost but not forgotten. RIP.