Don't Baulk: Baulkham Hills

Welcome to week one of lockdown-induced half-frequency posting. Here's a needlessly large suburb in Sydney's northwest. 

Baulkham Hills 

Baulkham Hills is around 30km northwest of Sydney CBD, straddling the sort of area where the Hills District meets the rest of Western Sydney. I was fortunate enough today to have Mrs Completing Sydney chauffeuring me around in a car, which is swell for a dreary day such as this. 

My visit to Baulkham Hills starts with this car park to a spot that a colleague recommended to me a couple of years ago. 

This is the car park for quite a large recreational reserve 

complete with cricket pitches, 

and neighbouring daycare centre. 

I wasn't here to get dropped off at daycare however, 

I was here to check out Roxborough Park Rose Garden, the spot I'd been tipped off to some time ago. 

Unfortunately, this is not rose season.

This meant that instead of enjoying hundreds of flowering roses, I was treated to thorny stems,

with a handful of sad-flowered buds. 

It's not all bad though. They've got some fairly swell palm trees, 

this puddle,

and yes, the occasional attractive flower too, even during this apparently incorrect time of year.

Having already spent way too long talking about a garden, I skedaddled out of there. 

Past this old bar-fridge-turned-community-library,

and back into my domestic Uber. 

Next stop - a little bit of residential Baulkham Hills. 

This particular - arbitrarily chosen - patch of suburban Baulkham Hills features all of the mainstays of Northwest Sydney:

Pleasant but unnotable double story houses, 

above-average sized plots of land, allowing for generous front lawns and moderately leafy surrounds, 

and the occasional outrageously flashy house. 

Suburbia. 

Near this residential collection is another park - Crestwood Reserve.

Here you've got your kids weekend footy,

or wetball netball, 

a playground, 

some spots to grill,

and some gallahs. 

These gallahs were immediately overshadowed by ducks going to playgroup,

and preparing for their upcoming game of tennis. Ducks are wonderful. 

We continued through the Hills of Baulkham,

making another pittstop at this community strip of shops tucked into an otherwise residential patch. 

This was really nothing too notable - a small grocer and liquor store, a chemist and Thai restaurant,

and the most popular spot by far, a classic Aussie-style takeaway and bakery. We considered stopping for lunch here, but there were about 12,000 people queueing inside and not really anywhere to sit, so we left it for now.

Across from the shops are some more lockdown-approved outdoor recreation spots,

with some more timid locals,

and more interestingly, 

a BMX track,

although nobody was using it today, it's quite cool to see these sorts of unconventional outdoor amenities. 

Having now sampled what I thought was a fair selection of Baulkham Hills, we figured it was time to actually get some lunch before heading to the next suburb,

on the way, I commanded kindly requested Mrs Completing Sydney make a sudden stop,

due to passing a P Plater limo. 

Whoever this 17 year old is who saved up their Maccas money for their first car and decided to buy a used limousine instead of a 1998 Toyota Camry - I salute you. 

Anyway.

We continued on to another suburban shopping strip,

where we decided to have lunch at this local bakery. 

Davids Cakes is full of knick-knacks, 

presumably because it's charming or something.

But they do a pretty good pie (bonus bite already taken out before I remembered to take a photo). 

Here's a beef, bacon and cheese pie, with the obligatory molten cheese to cause second-degree facial burns.

Being a bakery, cakes and sweets are also available, 

a hedgehog slice was hence on the cards. Sadly, this slice contained very little hedgehog. 

With that done (and not feeling like heading to the major shopping centre of Baulkham Hills due to sitting at the intersection of three main roads), we called it for this suburb and headed towards the next.

Baulkham Hills: Ducks, parks, and a P-plater limo, what more do you want?