Here's the third stop on my Carlingford Line Anniversary Extravaganza.
Camellia
If you've been following the story thus far, you'll know that Camellia is not just some lady. She's some lady immediately north of Rosehill.I entered the suburb from Rosehill through this patch of grass.
Interestingly (sort of), the station is immediately over the border.
This is the first station of many we'll see that looks like this. It's a single, half-length platform (the Carlo line only takes four car trains) and to get to the station, you just stroll across the single track.
Here's one for you trainspotters out there.
Somewhat bizarrely, this station is only a short walk from Rosehill station, mostly through the carpark at Rosehill station and racecourse, making you wonder why it exists in the first place.
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| Imagery ©2019 Google, Map Data ©2019 |
So anyway, is there anything at Camellia other than the obvious station? Well, if you're expecting to see houses, you're out of luck, because just like Clyde, our first stop in this miniseries, no people live here. Not even a homeless guy under the bridge.
I continued on from the station to see what Camellia has to offer its zero inhabitants.
It turns out that Camellia is more or less one long road, the optimistically named Grand Ave.
That one long road is used by industry, with big rigs parked up and down the side of the unexpectedly leafy road.
This is because Camellia is exclusively industrial and commercial, with business parks and factories being the suburb's only occupants.
Surprisingly though, I actually really enjoyed my walk down the Avenue of Grand on this beautiful blue skied day.
Firstly, looking at trucks parked on the side of the road is a fun alternative to looking at them come into your lane while you drive.
But apart from that, there is some low-key decoration along the street which makes this industrial strip a little more interesting than you'd expect. For instance, they've carved some pictures on a few boulders and placed them in the median strip.
As well as these telephone poles which have been carved into what I can only call totem poles.
You can see some NSW government banners in that photo above. I believe this is related to the Parramatta Light Rail which is supposed to replace the Carlingford Train Line.
Interestingly, as part of this, it turns out that the entire industrial area that is Camellia is planned to be converted into one of those new, shiny, high density residential suburbs in the future. I suppose this makes sense, considering the riverside location and proximity to Hooters. If this does happen, you can look back at this blog post and check out how the suburb used to be.
Anyway, there's not too much else to say about an industrial suburb like Camelia. I continued along, passing more factories,
some apparently disused rail branches,
and a petrol station only selling truck diesel.
I finally turned off of Grand Ave towards what Google Maps told me is a pedestrian river crossing to the next suburb.
What I found was not just a river crossing, but the coolest damn bridge I've ever had the pleasure of suburbsing on.
It doesn't look like its open to the public, but in fact this set of stairs laying on some pipes,
forms part of a bridge,
over the glistening Parramatta River.
Once I'd crossed the bridge I was in the next suburb.
Camellia: I originally was going to write "Where's Charles?" as my tagline but it turns out that her name is Camilla and now I don't know what to write. Great job, Camellia.
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