Extreme postcodes: 2026

What's the suburb with the highest average house price? Not necessarily with the highest individually priced houses (they're all enormous mansions on the harbour). But the highest overall average for an entire suburb?

The winner is: Tamarama. A tiny oceanside suburb, just south of Bondi, where every other house has a multi-million dollar view. As in $5 million, $10 million, or $15 million sometimes. No wonder it's sometimes called 'Glamourama'.

Even this modest looking place away from the sea in Fletcher St is estimated to be approaching $3 million.

When I called in the other day, Tamarama wasn't exactly putting on it's best face. The sky was dark, the sea was ferocious, and the beach - normally home to beautiful locals and hipster travellers - was closed. Rain bands came through every few minutes, and after grabbing my pictures, I hastily retreated.

It still looked a little bit appealing though, and I look forward to my next visit in a couple of months time, when 'Sculptures by the Sea' arrives for its annual extravaganza.

Extreme postcodes: 2165

Fairfield East is the Sydney suburb with the lowest average taxable income. I'm not at all sure how well this relates to genuine poverty. Maybe everyone's got a job, though a low paid one, or maybe they've all got good jobs but they're just better at minimising their tax than most. But it's the best guide we've got.

What does it look like, this possibly poorest suburb? I thought I'd better go there and find out.

It doesn't look all that flash, but not particularly down-at-heel either. There were indeed abandoned shopping trolleys in what passed as the local park, and I was tempted to lead this piece with the cliche abandoned shopping trolley shot. But that wouldn't have been fair. There are abandoned shopping trolleys all over Sydney, even in the ritziest of suburbs.

There were certainly a lot of small, old,  fibro or weatherboard houses. There's a worse-for-wear corner shop, and a middle-of-the road little shopping strip. But the old houses are being steadily replaced, I noticed with new, fancier dwellings, McMansions even. So there is some money around.

The nearby town centre of Fairfield proper seems to be thriving. It's lively, interesting, and very cosmopolitan. It seems to have doubled in size since I used to drop by on my way home from work ten years or so ago. The good folk of Fairfield East are probably well served for most services then.





So I've seen many a worse place to live than Fairfield East.

Extreme postcodes: 2027

This is Sydney's (and Australia's) wealthiest postcode. It covers Edgecliffe, Darling Point, Point Piper, and Double Bay.

It's a bit hard to map wealth itself - it's too easy to hide it. But various analyses, using declared taxable incomes, for what they're worth, have come up with this one. And it's home to several of Australia's best known billionaires (and it houses the office of an almost-billionaire would-be Prime Minister, I noticed).

 I also noticed lots of fine water views (mostly blocked to the public by the mansions hugging the shoreline), well maintained streets with fine old trees, and lots of tradies carrying out 'Finest Plumbing' bathroom renovations. Come to think of it, I saw few other people about than the tradies. There was a 'lavender scented nappy washing service' doing its deliveries too. There are a few boats too, of course. But the tone of the suburb was nicely lowered by the spectacularly graffitied furniture removal van on New South Head Road.

West Head tracks and treasures

I'm leading a bushwalk soon along a selection of the tracks and fire trails that lead out on either side of the West Head Road in the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park. So I did a quick recce the other day, to remind me what was what and which tracks would best suit for a 25 km total walk and a mix of experiences.

I settled on the following itinerary: the Waratah Track, the Willunga Track, the Bairne Track, and the circuit walk formed by the West Head, Headland, and Resolute tracks. Between them they provide some nice long leg stretches, some great water views in all directions, the chance of wildlife sightings, and a good selection of aboriginal artworks. I stumbled on several examples of rock engravings that I'd been completely unaware of before. National Parks deliberately only signpost a few of the more accessible ones, but if you keep your eyes open and explore the many flat rocky areas you come to, there are lots more to be seen. There was a 'Red Hands Cave' too, close to the much touristed West Head. I'd been unaware of this one, but it was in fact one of the signposted attractions.

A frequent highlight for me of walks around here is the sighting of a snake or two. In particular a beautiful diamond python will often be stretched out and sunning itself across the fire trail. No such luck this time. Although it's been an unusually warm and sunny winter, it's still not quite warm enough to lure them out of their seasonal slumber. Won't be long now. And it won't be long before we can start looking for the Waratah flowers. There was lots of birdlife around, though no sea eagles soaring above on this occasion. But there was a very cocky brush turkey hanging around Red Hands Cave.

I think I've put together a good little day's outing for the bushwalkers.

Once were leafy green

The 'leafy green northern suburbs' are a bit of a Sydney cliche. But as you fly over Sydney that is indeed what you see: an urban forest with houses and roads and things tucked away underneath. We're rather proud of it, though we do accept there are penalties to be paid in terms of increased fire danger and inconvenience from time to time through interrupted power supplies or traffic hazards. And the odd house gets damaged from time to time, and occasionally - very occasionally - someone does indeed get squashed.

Suddenly the delicate balance between the pro-tree and anti-tree forces seem to be shifting rapidly. There was the shock of the Blue Mountains bushfires late last year. There has been a relaxation of the rules about permitted tree clearing around houses in rural areas. There was the tragic death in Pitt Town Public School's playground a few months ago. There was the election a couple of years ago of an extraordinarily pro-development Hornsby Council. And along the Northern Line railway corridor between Epping and Thornleigh, there has been a 'treemageddon' going on, as huge numbers of mature healthy trees have been removed to make way for a third railway track to speed up goods trains.

Perhaps it was entirely appropriate therefore that my progress to my morning coffee break in Pennant Hills last Saturday was unexpectedly blocked by what was described in a local paper as a 'tree chopping frenzy'. It was the day before National Tree Day, would you believe, and two huge and well loved blue gums were being dispatched.













A week later, and the scene of the crime is marked by floral memorials to those obviously much loved trees. I watched through the cafe window though, as a Hornsby Council worker, disguised as a sulphur crested cockatoo, dismantled even these.

 
 

















For more on this (and better pictures, though I say so myself), see: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/newslocal/the-hills/hornsby-council-accused-of-tree-chopping-frenzy-as-it-fells-two-mature-blue-gum-trees-at-pennant-hills/story-fngr8i1f-1227004202507