Jim Crow: Seven Hills

Today, we rest from the trials and tribulations of Southeast Sydney to head out West. 

Seven Hills

Seven Hills is a suburb in the heart of Western Sydney, bordering Blacktown and Toongabbie. With ominous grey skies, my Cityrail chariot brought me in. 

Handily, the station stairs invite you to turn left for "Easier Shopping" ®™©,

so that seemed like the way to go. 

On the way down the station ramp, I noticed that someone lost their slip-on on this shelter. So if you went to Seven Hills and came home with one less shoe, it's here. 

Anyway, of interest here is this mural under the rail bridge, 

and a lot of pigeons who live in front of the shops. 

And on top of the shops. 

The below Hitchcock-esque pictures are the harrowing scenes of pigeons attacking. 

Crossing the car park to the shops without getting flapped or pooped on, I found a pretty low key suburban shopping strip of kebabs, (great smelling) Indian food and hairdressers. 

Pick the right alley and you'll see some street art too. 

Exhausting the things to do at Seven Hills shops (there's also a proper Westfield-like shoppping centre near by but that's not really my jam), I headed to the other side of the station under the watchful eyes of the local pigeon gang. 

Here, I was away from pigeon turf, 

instead finding myself on cockatoo soil. 

Rough neighbourhood.

If that wasn't enough, by here is a park,

where ducks run the show. 

Seriously though, the ducks of Seven Hills are actually very friendly, following me as I headed through the park, 

(pardon me).

Well, either that or they were chasing me out of their hood. You can never tell with ducks (it's probably more likely that the locals feed them so they're following in hope). 

Ducks aside, this park is actually pretty cool, with a heavily running creek (likely owing to the recent rains),

that you can follow along with this mighty fine path. 

The creek even has its own monument in the form of a discarded trolley. 

Eventually, the ducks chased me all the way out, 

to magpietown,

and ibisville. 

It's a shame that we have such ethnic segregation in Sydney but I didn't see any gang violence today so things probably aren't so bad. 

The park's name celebrates this also. 

This journey dumped me into residential Seven Hills. 

This turned out to be the kind of Western Sydney suburbia I don't see that much of lately. Brick,

weatherboard, 

or fibro. The three horsemen of Western Sydney suburbia. 

Some incorporate elements of multiple of these staples. 

Strolling on through, 

I passed this supremely purple tree, 

a house painted grey-sky-blue, 

and generally more of the same. 

A handful of folks have decided to rebuild their houses. This one did so with fake grass nicked from the local mini-golf. 

But most of the suburb (the bit I went through anyway) has yet to have this treatment, 

still sporting the old school homes of the yesteryear. I find this a welcome change from the endless new houses and duplexes I normally see when strolling through the west.  

Eventually, I took this back path,

past this curly street, 

and up this road, 

into my next suburb. 

Seven Hills: Bird segregation and the kind of houses you might have grown up in.