The Fresh Prince of: Belfield

This next suburb is one of those that you can go your entire life without visiting or hearing anything about. Let's visit 

Belfield

From Greenacre, my previous suburb, Belfield is on the other side of this bridge.

Interestingly, this is not a bridge over a creek or river, but a bridge over one hell of a collection of train lines. 

The surrounds are just green enough for this to be aesthetic, in an "Industrial Revolution" sort of way. 

It seems that the local council agree with me, because just after the bridge is actually a lookout over this bit of infrastructure - the wonderfully named Enfield Intermodal Lookout. 

To get to the lookout, you follow this path. Now, a confession, this path actually takes you into a different suburb. That suburb is actually my next suburb, but I'll just include it in the Belfield post anyway for the sake of flow. 

This lookout gives a little bit of local industrial history (which my attention span was a bit too short to read today),

and a view over some rusty old warehouses, 

as well as a surprisingly sweeping view of the railway underneath,

and its unusually undeveloped surrounds. I give it 10 years before this land is covered in apartments (and this is still in Western Sydney, but the men in shiny suits will sell them to you as the Inner West). 

After that brief detour, 

it was time to start on actual Belfield. 

Now, in hindsight, the route I chose through the suburb today wasn't ideal, mainly taking me on main roads. This means that Belfield may end up getting judged slightly unfairly.

Still, I did see this cute and slightly pointy house, which is pretty swell. 

Otherwise, this Belfieldian walk didn't offer up too many surprises. Some new houses along the main road,

and the kinds of scenes you'd be accustomed to if you drive on any arterial surface roads in Sydney. 

After a short distance, I found myself at what is undoubtedly Belfield's centre point, at this reasonably small shopping strip of suburban services (a chemist, newsagent, and the like), all tied together by a pub on the corner. 

All quite conventional and inoffensive. 

Rather than spend time at the closed shops, however (by now it was late Saturday afternoon with evening creeping up), I chose to instead turn past these new apartment blocks and head north. 

This took me past this vintage something-or-other, 

and a slightly polluted path, 

through to a wooded street of townhouses, 

and ultimately quite a large park. 

This park calls itself Bark Huts Reserve, which is a strange name for a park if you ask me. If the name upsets you I have good news, because if you take a look at a map of Belfield, you'll find a surprising amount of the suburb actually occupied by parks and sports fields, meaning you can find yourself one with a better name. There's one called Rudd Park a few streets away, and being that the Kevin07 election was an exciting time in my youth, maybe that one would do better. 

Not wanting to get hit by a stray cricket ball, I kept on moving, 

finding a nice little playground behind the fields. 

Perhaps more important than that, however, is that behind the playground is this street. This street is a completely regular leafy suburban street, but it does contain one small detail. 

The street turns into a small bridge over this sad excuse for a river (the mighty Cooks River for those of you playing at home). 

The Cooks River is where Belfield ends and my next suburb begins. More interestingly, it's also where the Inner West begins (according to me, anyway). 

Belfield: Inter-regional travel.