Goldrush: Riverstone

This next Northwest Sydney suburb is not-quite Sydney by Technicality, but does still have an interesting rural feel.

Riverstone

After leaving the still-warm Grantham Farm, I carried on deeper into Northwest Sydney to reach Riverstone. It looks like this. 

Disembarking, I found this semi-residential burger shack, 

which you'll have to start yourself, 

and a whole heap of rather cute older houses.

This one has a wedding arch in its front yard, 

this one has the front yard of a mansion,

and this one is gold-rush-chic. 

Being quite far from the rest of Sydney (but not quite yet in the Hawkesbury), Riverstone has a lot of open space, giving it the feel of a town, rather than a suburb. 

That feel continues as you head towards the CBD.

Here, I found more cute older buildings, 

including the rarely spotted Western Sydney terrace.

There's some more gold rush styled shops, 

and a generally pleasant, albeit very quiet, streetscape. 

For lovers of bizarrely juxtaposed art, you can treat yourself to this mural with vaguely rural scenes, such as a man kicking a football off a pig that's standing on a cow's head, a sheep chilling in a cloud, and a Big Brother-esque eyeball staring down at the earth. 

After attending the award ceremony for the Riverstone Archibald Prize (the sheep in the cloud won), I headed towards Riverstone station for the last bit of Riverstonian sightseeing. This involved waiting at this traffic light for what seemed like 35 minutes.  

Seriously, this traffic light in Riverstone town centre takes an outrageous amount of time. 

After crossing, I said hello to one of the few Cityrail level crossings still in Sydney,

and this interesting building attached to the station, 

before heading to the actual station. 

Riverstone station, while a heritage building, is a little bit plain compared to some of the other buildings seen in Riverstone so far. 

It does have a war memorial in front of it though which had been absolutely plastered with flowers at the time of my visit. 

From here, I carried on to a couple more suburbs - sort of. 

Riverstone: Look out for the gold diggers.