Round trip: in two parts.

As usual click on images to embigen.

Yesterday, despite Fran's apprehension of my navigation skills, we took off for an adventure on the public transport system of western Sydney.

First the 5 minute walk to the 'brickmakers' stop of the T Way. The picture at left is a plaque at the stop in honor of the first aboriginal woman granted land by the colonial government back in 1833.

40 acres does not seem like much land for loosing your culture and heritage, especially when some bloke called reverend Cartwright received a way larger lot next to Locks.

So we jump on the #80 for Parramatta [after some confusion about which side of the T way we were to board] and head into the western burbs of Sydney. Not a pretty sight so no pictures. The first part of the T way was well looked after and in a park like setting with houses either side crammed in like you would not believe with the odd Mac Mansion scattered among the single level bungalows.

We then merged with the main roads and such and into the small industrial areas of western Sydney.

On alighting at Parramatta rail station low and behold we see this bloody huggantic mall right across the street. Westfield shopping plazas seem to be everywhere you go, but this one was BIG.

In we go looking for some walking shoes for Fran, after several incursions into the big retail stores we decided that enough was enough, but on the way out I decided to try one more shoe store, 'pay less', bingo Fran scored her shoes.

On emerging the plaza we headed down familiar streets that are now closed to traffic. We [I] decided to head towards the river, on the way a likely looking cafe lured us in for the best dinky di burger I have had in decades. Johny's cafe made burgers like they should be, home made patties, lettuce, tomato, beets, fried onions, egg and bacon. Too much for us to handle but what the heck, the Asian operators sure know how to do a real Ozzie burger boy.

Continuing our walk to the river we arrived at the River Cat wharf 10 minutes after the latest departure to Circular Que. Not deterred we did a walk up above the weir to fill in time until 2:30. On the south side are the high rises of the down town and on the north side are high rise apartments. It is nice and neat but the sounds of the city does infringe, but we would say that wouldn't we. There is a nice looking bar/restaurant that greets people disembarking, they have a nice selection of beers that we did not get to sample, thems the breaks on a nice winters day.