This next suburb is another example of that weird poorly defined middle region of Sydney where the North meets the West.

Melrose Park

Last I left you, I was in rainy North Ryde. Well, after lunch the rain settled down, allowing me to hop on a bus west down Victoria Road.

This dropped me off here.

So let me tell you about Melrose Park.

I grew up in Dundas, which is two suburbs away from here. A mainstay of childhood kindergarten birthday parties was going to Putt Putt. A few years ago, the land housing our beloved Putt Putt was sold to a property developer.

Putt Putt is now this.

First thoughts of the suburb:

Once I regained my composure, I was able to begin the suburb.

Passing the site of the incident, I headed south down Wharf Street.

On this street, you have one side of the road hosting fairly standard Aussie suburbia,

on the other side, the fallen comrade.

Trying not to let the suburb's past cloud my judgement, I headed into the new development to see what I could see.

Here I found not much of interest - some still in progress development,

a curly thing,

and some slippery stairs.

I'm sure the area will be nicer when it's done, but for now it can't hold a candle to 54 holes of fun.

I headed back to Wharf Road and continued on.

A similar trend continued here, with more classic Aussie suburbia on one side,

and industry on the other.

For now, anyway.

This set up essentially continues all the way down,

with relatively modest houses on one side,

and doomed industry on the other.

I'm not sure how many ways I can repeat the same thing.

To change pace, the road also took me past the white picket fence of Melrose Park Public School,

notable for having the world's most nondescript school building in the history of nondescript school buildings.

Somewhat (but not really) interestingly, in the distance the apartments of Wentworth Point can be seen, another reclaimed suburb full of apartments - although that one is further along than what's going on in Melrose Park.

Carrying on through the suburban-industrial divide,

I chose to indulge in some pure chaos,

before the industry ended,

leading me to some greenspace before the Parramatta River.

I chose not to head all the way to the river for this suburb, as my next suburb will take me there, so instead I took a pedestrian and cycle path parallel,

passing Australia's oil reserves,

and some lame sprouts.

This is part of a network of paths along Parramatta River which I've visited in previous other posts in the neighbourhood (such as Rydalmere and Meadowbank).

What you get here is a surprisingly lush walk,

neighbouring the aformentioned industry,

and leading to an elevated walkway over what I can only describe as "wetlands".

Sadly, there seems to be a fair bit of rubbish on the ground below (but that could perhaps be due to the flooding quite recently before this visit).

Regardless, the walk is a great way for Melrose Park to redeem itself after losing its star tenant.

After not too long, the path continued over the border into the next suburb.

Melrose Park: The obvious thing to do is to make a Melrose Place reference. Unfortunately, I've never seen that show (I was playing Putt Putt at the time.)