The Good Old Days: Old Toongabbie

When I started this challenge, I expected to be walking through interesting walkways, eating new food, and browsing unusual grocery stores. I do that stuff, but I also spend a lot of time looking at the houses of completely anonymous Western Sydney suburbia. Next in line we have

Old Toongabbie

If Toongabbie is a little bit too modern for you, you may instead wish to head east into Old Toongabbie. That's what I did, entering this suburb on foot from its apparently newer brother.

At first glance, Old Toongabbie is very much a continuation of its neighbour, with smaller, older homes appearing to be the norm,

on, once again, long and straight streets,

with the new, the larger and renovated mixed in too.

Just a short distance into the suburb,

I found myself in the basketball courts,

and car park of the local Binalong Park.

This park is actually huge, albeit not the most exciting, housing grounds for many kinds of sports, from the running around variety,

to the standing in the sun variety.

I took a footpath through this more-athletic-than-me park, thankfully not collecting a cricket ball to the chest along the way,

and hit the park's back fence, marked with the unmistakable "you're not supposed to go to this bit" signs of tall grass and storm drains.

To continue through Old Toongabbie, I had to exit the park by following the fence along,

And taking an opening into the next available suburban street.

The green paths here house more of the varied residential suburbia that I've come to expect from the Toongabbies,

and so I continued on, seeing, really, more of everything.

More big and small.

More old and new (and grey),

more lush grass and verandahs,

and even Western Sydney's most highly secured patio.

This is the story of Old Toongabbie, much as is the story of many other residential suburbs out here.

Nothing too flashy.

Just suburbia.

From here, I was actually in a position to cross the border into my next suburb, but I decided to make a quick detour first,

and headed a short distance to the suburb's most main road by far - Old Windsor Road.

This piece of road is a major artery connecting The Hills to Parramatta's satellite suburbs. It also hosts part of the Northwest T-Way, a dedicated bus road running parallel.

Perhaps more interestingly, on Old Toongabbie's stretch of Old Windsor Road lies a peculiar building.

Due to where it sits (not to mention my low level of photographical talent), it's difficult to get a good photo, but this is the Sydney Shakti Temple, a Hindu temple and cultural centre.