An attempt to visit every suburb in Sydney.

We haven't really ventured into Southeast Sydney just yet (unless you count Moore Park - I don't), so here's a start. Oh ...

Off Campus: Kingsford


We haven't really ventured into Southeast Sydney just yet (unless you count Moore Park - I don't), so here's a start.

Oh and a disclaimer - this is one of those posts where we have a big-wide suburb but I only focus on a small portion. Apologies if you're in Kingsford and I skipped your amazing house.

Kingsford

Kingsford sits next to it's better known neighbour Randwick, and immediately south of the University of New South Wales' main campus. As a UNSW alumnus myself, I've previously spent four years worth of lazy mid-day breaks wandering around here, so it is an area that is near and dear to me.

Although the track has been laid, Kingsford's yet to have its light rail plugged in, so a Sydney bus was my chariot of choice, dropping me off onto the major Anzac Parade.

This is Kingsford's main commercial-ly bit, so I started my wander.

Even though the light rail is yet to open, its construction has actually transformed the area since my student days. I quite like how this side street has been transformed into a mini plaza by way of just adding a few of these "parklet" things.

As I was intending to spend most of this post on Anzac Parade, I thought I'd temporarily zip into a side street to mix it up a little.

Unfortunately, the side street I chose was literally just people's garages. Way to rain on my Anzac Parade.

That being said, my detour did allow me to enjoy the evidence of somebody who clearly did not give way.

Garage alley led me briefly to this pretty suburban street,

before I returned to the main road.

Maybe this is just my nostalgia talking, but I've always liked the stores on Anzac Parade. You see, Kingsford is kind of a student town, due to UNSW next door, and the stores reflect that.

Firstly, you've got plenty of Asian restaurants offering up great cheap eats.


Due to the large number of international students studying at UNSW (and thus living nearby), plenty of stores here are catering to that demographic. Hence Kingsford has a number of Asian groceries  (where in my late teens I met my first love, unknown foreign snacks and soft drinks. Let it be known that my entire university degree was fuelled with Thai red bull).

Other targeted businesses include bubble tea stores,

local tours,

a gaming cafe,

and somewhere to print off your assignment when it's due at 9am and you realise at 3:37am that your home printer doesn't want to print because it's out of magenta.

Further than just the businesses though, I find Kingford's Anzac Parade to be an aesthetically interesting place, with layers of Sydney's past (heritage shop facades), present (apartments) and future (construction) all visible in a single glance.

You've even got these funky painted picnic tables sitting in front of a colourfully painted wall. I don't know why these are here, but I like them.

If you turn off Anzac Parade into this laneway,

you catch this beautiful set of murals dedicated to the suburb's namesake, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith.

As well as pretty, it's also educational, teaching me that the man who Sydney's airport is named after was the first person to fly trans-tasman from the US to Australia. It took 10 days, and something tells me they didn't have in-flight WiFi.

As a little bonus, this laneway leads into Southern Cross Cl, presumably named after the plane which Kingsford Smith flew on the journey.

From here, I turned past some plain and older apartments (one of which is named St Elmo, presumably after the Sesame Street puppet who was canonised in his later years),

through some construction,

and onto Gardeners Road, which rides the suburb's border.

The only reason I headed this way was to snap a picture of this rather grand Greek Orthodox Church, with the slightly stereotypical name of "St Spyridon" .

Having thoroughly enjoyed my trip down memory lane, I crossed the road to head into my next suburb.

Kingsford: Our feeble attempt at a college town.

2 comments:

  1. Way to rain on my Anzac Parade. :) Love it!

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  2. Your colorful building mural was painted by Numskull. I think he goes by funskull now :)

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