Covid countdown - Western Sydney Parklands

Today's legal exercise was a bike ride through the Western Sydney Parklands. I'd walked the northernmost bit a few weeks back, and was hoping to get through to the southern end and back.








Not quite so easy. Nurragingy Reserve is still closed, so I got onto the (now extremely well patronised) M7 cycleway. I stuck pretty well with that afterwards, finding that the options for parkland traversing were more limited than I'd realised.



Here's a nice little diversion, on Border Rd, Cecil Hills.

The cycleway occupies one of the many bridges forming the tangled M4/M7 interchange.

Sydney's Great West Walk - the walking (parts 1, 2, & 3)

The bushwalking club has now done the first three of the four stages of the Great West Walk that I'd been surveying.

Here we are, setting out from Parramatta.

Toongabbie Creek

Western Sydney Parklands

Nurragingy Reserve and some unexpected visitors

A big kangaroo in Lucy Cobcroft Park, Mt Druitt
















Below: a Western Sydney special: last night's burnt-out stolen car, still smelling all sweet and rubbery!

 (Some photos courtesy of Leah Taylor)

Sydney's Great West Walk - the surveying

The Great West Walk is a recently inaugurated track across Western Sydney, linking Parramatta and Penrith. It joins various parks, creekside tracks and bushland reserves, though there's plenty of street walking involved too.

It's 65km long, and I decided to explore it and put it onto my bushwalking club's programme. I divided it into four stages, each around 14 to 20km long:

1. Parramatta station to Seven Hills station
2. Seven Hills station to Rooty Hill station
3. Rooty Hill station to Ropes Crossing shopping centre
4. Ropes Crossing shopping centre to Penrith station

During stage 2, you get to see the northern bit of the Western Sydney Parklands.


My surveying trips were mostly done last month. It was very dry, rather hot, and bushfire smoke was in the air. I felt a bit unsafe in some of the parkland areas. I made a point of being aware always of which way to run, should a fire break out nearby. And the fact that I was usually the only one out and about, and I was alone in abandoned shopping trolley central, didn't exactly help. I came through unscathed though! 

One of many bright spots:  Rooty Hill station, with one of the finest rows of Crepe Myrtle trees (aka Pride of India).

Here's Whalan Reserve, home to a majestic collection of  high voltage transmission towers. Thought there might be a few dog walkers, joggers, cyclists etc. But no. They don't seem to do much of that round here.

Ropes Crossing was a pleasant surprise. Ponds and creek, tasteful housing, and a rather nice little shopping strip.

Then there's Wianamatta Regional Park. This used to be an Australian Defence Industries site. It's largely unspoilt Cumberland Plain bushland, and a nice place to be walking through. But here too, I was absolutely the only person there. A bit spooky.

To the west of Wianamatta is another brand new suburb: Jordan Springs. Again, quite promising, with creeks and ponds, and a central lake.

Eventually I hit the Nepean River at Penrith, and was welcomed by friendly fairy wrens and historic bridges.