Not the Melbourne One: Carlton

In Melbourne, Carlton is an interesting and dynamic inner-city suburb, known for its cafes, Italian restaurants, heritage architecture and football team (of the type they play in Victoria). It turns out that Sydney has its own Carlton too. Ours isn't as good.

Carlton

Carlton sits in the St George region of Southern Sydney. The easiest way for me to get in today was by Sydney trains, my train taking 22 minutes to get there from Central.

Carlton Station is a fairly typical suburban Sydney station, plopped in the middle of the suburb's modest commercial centre.

My plan was to head south from the station to explore that side of the suburb, but I thought I'd have a look at the northern side first. It didn't slow me down too much, because "downtown" Carlton is kind of crappy.

What's here? A closed cafe under an interesting vintage building,

a South Asian grocer,

and a convenience store ripping off the Woolworths Logo from 1987.

The whole shopping strip is a little bit 1987 to be honest.

What about the southern side?

It's pretty quiet up there too, but at least the Royal Hotel pub is an interesting enough building,

and special mention also has to go to this gym's outrageously brash sign. Hardcore indeed.

I left Carlton CBD and continued south,

passing this actually really good looking Greek sweet shop as I started.

I wish I could say that residential Carlton is more interesting than commercial Carlton, but sadly, that is not true.

Most homes out here are the stock-standard mid twentieth century brick apartments that you find just about everywhere,

or their slightly more interesting free-standing brethren.

I also ran into another small shopping strip. At least this one is channelling 1997 instead.

Finally, towards the southern end of the suburb, I found Kogarah Park.

Of interest here is shrine to the local football team (of the kind they play in NSW) who are apparently the St George Illawarra Dragons. I know as much about rugby as I do open heart surgery, so all I can say is that I liked their statue.

Kogarah Park is part of a wider sports complex which includes Jubilee Stadium, home ground for that same team.

Also based here is the Sydney FC football team (of the kind they play in other countries). Here's a picture featuring the team's plumage (as well as our New Delhi air quality).