Taverners Hill

I didn't have particularly high expectations of Taverners Hill as a light rail stop.  After the excitement of Lewisham West's classy modern apartment blocks and well presented flood warning signs I just didn't think Taverners Hill would measure up.  Particularly since they only called it Taverners Hill to save the embarrassment of calling it Lewisham North West.  I was about to be surprised.


The first sign that things might be looking up was the Greenway, which had deteriorated into an oversized pile of lawn clippings at Lewisham West, had rebounded with a vengeance.  Trees, bushes and ferns lined the side of the track as I approached to such an extent that the ratio of living plant material to dumped rubbish was comfortably over fifty percent.  Mind you my expectations sank again as the light rail burst from verdant green and rattled over that ghastly ribbon of carbon monoxide and shattered dreams more commonly known as Parramatta Road.  Taverner's Hill light rail station is essentially an extension of the bridge that carries the track over the road and doesn't hold out much hope of an improvement.


However improvement there was.  Once one descended from the vertiginous heights of the station to something more approximating ground level (ie, ground level) things picked up straight away.  The ambitious drain that had paralleled the light rail's course for the last couple of stops had really come into its own and was now a genuine (albeit brick and concrete walled) waterway with a trickle of liquid right in the middle to prove it had a reason for being.  It even had a name, the Hawthorne Canal.  With the enforced space came a narrow but genuine profusion of trees and other greenery with a bicycle path running through it.  Signs indicated that if you were ambitious enough you could bike to Balmain and unlike a path for cars there didn't seem to be any issues with pedestrians using it as well.


The trees didn't drown out the noise of traffic but they did mute it somewhat and gave the impression that a full scale city was somewhat more than a couple of hundred metres away.  It was also pleasantly cool which was handy for someone who had rather overdressed for the weather and had, until now, been sweating in a rather thick football jersey.


I need to digress for a moment to talk about ibis.  Ibis are a quintessentially Sydney bird.  Their natural habitat is in marshland but on the occasion of the installation of the first rubbish bin in Sydney they emigrated en masse to the city.  These shabby, scabby, filthy, moulty, feathered bin rats are an iconic part of the urban landscape.  They are perfectly adapted to their environment.  They have long, curved bills for rummaging in garbage bins, their grotty off white colour scheme makes it impossible to tell whether they're dirty or clean (my money's on the former) and their size and wingspan gives them the heft to compete with pigeons, rats, small children and anything else that might challenge their dominance of the garbage piles of Sydney.  Like the ravens at the Tower of London strange legends have grown up around them.  It is said that if the ibis ever leave Sydney all our rubbish bins will overflow.


I mention these aerial plague spots because as I wandered along the bike path amongst the trees I saw a couple of them in something vaguely approximating their natural habitat.  They were wading through the canal prodding at the mud disconsolately with their beaks.  They seemed slightly bewildered and every fibre of their body language screamed "what the hell happened to all the garbage bins?"  I left them to reconnect with the nature they had been so desperate to leave and climbed back to Taverners Hill light rail station.  Normally at this point I mention that I went to Newtown for lunch but it was 11.30 in the morning and I was feeling tired so I went home and went to bed.