I've always been curious about this next suburb. Sitting on Sydney's southern tip, right at the edge of Wollongong's outskirts, this is
Waterfall
Waterfall is one of those places that everyone's heard of and nobody's been to. If you were the kind of kid who liked looking at the CityRail map when riding the train, you'll recognise that Waterfall's the last "Sydney Trains" station down south before you leave the city. My T4 weekend train made it here from Central after a leisurely 59 minute journey, stopping 22 times on the way.
The location of the station is a slightly confusing one, with the the Princes Highway and all of its traffic in and out of Sydney on its western side, and the Royal National Park (RNP) immediately to the east. That's really all you see as you leave the station too, with either a very busy highway or untouched bushland depending on where you look.
The suburb's borders basically hug 5km of the highway,
but also cover a few residential streets, so I made my way into the actual suburby bit to go and explore.
Interestingly, RNP isn't the only national park neighbouring Waterfall. The expansive Heathcote National Park is past the suburb's western border, and dwarves the few houses of the suburb.
Suburban Waterfall is actually very pleasant to walk through, with plenty of modest but different types of houses nestled in the trees,
although the amount of wooden houses is a little bit concerning, considering how flammable the suburb's very pretty surrounds must be.
My street hit a dead end,
where I met this walking trail into Heathcote National Park.
I had no Vegemite to put behind my ears so I chose not to take up the bushwalk offer today.
Turning around, I headed through the backstreets of Waterfall,
to end up on the Princes Highway myself.
This is where I found what appears to be Waterfall's only business: Legends Seafood, a fish and chip shop with plenty of outdoor seating and fairly good online reviews.
Sadly for the legends, it was still a little early for me to think about lunch, so I had to give Waterfall's valiant takeaway a pass.
At this point, I realised that if I ran, I could make the train leaving in three minutes to get to my next suburb.
Made it with seconds to spare.
Waterfall: A small town sandwiched between two national parks.
The location of the station is a slightly confusing one, with the the Princes Highway and all of its traffic in and out of Sydney on its western side, and the Royal National Park (RNP) immediately to the east. That's really all you see as you leave the station too, with either a very busy highway or untouched bushland depending on where you look.
The suburb's borders basically hug 5km of the highway,
but also cover a few residential streets, so I made my way into the actual suburby bit to go and explore.
Interestingly, RNP isn't the only national park neighbouring Waterfall. The expansive Heathcote National Park is past the suburb's western border, and dwarves the few houses of the suburb.
Suburban Waterfall is actually very pleasant to walk through, with plenty of modest but different types of houses nestled in the trees,
although the amount of wooden houses is a little bit concerning, considering how flammable the suburb's very pretty surrounds must be.
My street hit a dead end,
where I met this walking trail into Heathcote National Park.
I had no Vegemite to put behind my ears so I chose not to take up the bushwalk offer today.
Turning around, I headed through the backstreets of Waterfall,
to end up on the Princes Highway myself.
This is where I found what appears to be Waterfall's only business: Legends Seafood, a fish and chip shop with plenty of outdoor seating and fairly good online reviews.
Sadly for the legends, it was still a little early for me to think about lunch, so I had to give Waterfall's valiant takeaway a pass.
At this point, I realised that if I ran, I could make the train leaving in three minutes to get to my next suburb.
Made it with seconds to spare.
Waterfall: A small town sandwiched between two national parks.
Great post as always, I've been stuck waiting for the train at Waterfall plenty of times but never bothered to venture out of the station. Looks like I didn't miss much.
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