Guided Tour: Beecroft (With Humans of Eastwood)

We interrupt the recent string of Inner City posts to head north to leafy

Beecroft

I was recently approached by Justin, the bloke who runs the Humans of Eastwood Facebook page, suggesting we come suburbsing together. As a lover of memes about poorly parked cars, bin chickens, and making fun of Denistone, a collab seemed like a great idea. We settled on covering Beecroft, the relatively anonymous stop three suburbs north of Eastwood.

Unsurprisingly, I made use of the chariots of CityRail to come in on this gloomy day,

exiting west onto the street. 

The station exits onto a sleepy commercial district. 

I arrived a few minutes early so I poked my head around the area immediately surrounding the station first. 

Early highlights include cute art at the station's entrace,

and the coolest damn playground you'll ever lay eyes on. It's train themed!

Soon, Justin arrived, bringing along his buddy, confusingly also named Justin. We were now at liberty to begin exploring Beecroft, starting with it's plucky CBD.

This is all fairly standard stuff - the local Thai restaurant,

the local rub and tug parlour,

and a quiet shopping "village".

We passed through the shopping arcade to find more standard suburban commercial fare, with cafes, restaurants and beauty services,

as well as a parking garage which I'm told somebody had just driven their car through a few days prior. The gaping hole was now patched up with this tidy wooden box.

Anyway, also of interest in the town centre is the very cool old post office building, looking like an ancient Roman monument... to the post. 

We crossed the road and headed into residential Beecroft. 

This revealed a very green suburb with a surprising amount of fancy older houses,

well maintained footpaths,

and suspiciously short "No Through Road" signs. 

Apparently, there was a nice little nature patch and creek not too far from here so the Justins led me that way - with Beecroft now raining on our heads. 

On the way, we passed this gorgeous house,

and some long streetage, 

with plenty of green,

and more old and pretty houses on the way.

Albeit, some very difficult to photograph due to the fences and sheer amount of foliage Beecroft has on its streets. 

We soon arrived to Fearnley Park, 

and the creek,

a spot which gives rainforest vibes (expecially in this crappy weather).

We also met some of the local residents. 

We didn't trudge too far into the park due to the rain and our insufficient footwear, so we headed back towards Beecroft CBD for our next points of interest. 

On the way we met another local, this one far fluffier and more excitable than his feathered neighbours.

Made it.

After this the guys wanted to take me to some other nearby local points of interests, so we hopped in Justin 2's car and went cruising the mean streets of Beecroft. 

On the way, I learned of the local lore around this No left turn sign. At the start of the school day, it is illegal to turn left onto the small and narrow Albert Road off of the main Beecroft Road. This is due to the large amount of traffic heading to the nearby Ardern School.

Apparently, some time in 2008 or 2009, someone decided to make a fake no left turn sign between the hours of 7:30am and 9:30am and install it onto this intersection. After 200 odd drivers had been fined, it was noticed that this sign was fake and taken down in 2009. Here's a news article from the time. 

https://www.smh.com.au/national/200-fined-after-fake-sign-erected-police-20090827-f04q.html 

In 2013 or 2014 someone said "hey that fake sign was a good idea" and the government actually installed a real sign, pictured above. Ah local disputes. 

Anyway, it turns out that the Justins aren't suburban purists like me and their points of interest were actually in a different suburb. As a result, this is going to be a two parter - to be continued on my next post on Sunday!

After our other-suburb-excapades, we returned to Beecroft CBD for a spot of lunch.

Apparently this cafe in the local shops - Macchina Cafe - follows Humans of Eastwood on Instagram, so we thought we'd return the favour by buying lunch there. 

The boys picked up some burgers (pulled pork and chicken), which I am told were okay,

and I grabbed a bacon and egg roll and coffee, which I enjoyed. 

For a cafe inside a shopping mall, the experience was as perfectly acceptable as you would expect. 

After lunch, and having explored Beecroft (plus one bonus suburb), we were ready to call it a day.

I'll be back on Sunday with the bonus second suburb, but in the meantime check out Humans of Eastwood on Facebook (@Humansofeastwood) or Instagram (also @humansofeastwooddaily) for regular updates about the mean streets of Eastwood and its surrounding 'burbs.

Beecroft: Leafy streets with traffic vigilantes and fancy houses.