Pacific Highway

In a 17 minute walk along Pacific Highway from Wollstonecraft to St. Leonards its amazing what you can see.  We live on a tiny street off of Pacific Highway in Wollstonecraft which is a very small community of Sydney on the other side of the Sydney Harbour bridge from the CBD (Central Business District).  And when I say highway I mean semi busy street - nothing like the Garden State Parkway, Turnpike, or even Route 34. We actually live directly across from a hospital and three weeks into living here I have yet to hear a siren - which is a good sign!  Actually, it took us over one week to actually see anybody else in our building of 68 apartments. 

The past few days I have been working in the Chinatown section of Sydney and although the bus right outside our apartment on Pacific Highway is very convenient to get to in the morning and would eventually get me to Chinatown after some transfers I decided to start taking the train to see if it was quicker and easier.  Wollstonecraft does have a train station but it is a 25 minute walk west of our place apparently (I still have yet to wander through the residential streets to get there).  However, there is a central hub train station 17 minutes north of our place along Pacific Highway in St. Leonards so I have been trying that out because I'm on the train from start to finish and no transfers are involved. 

I'm pleased with the ease and quickness of traveling via train from St. Leonards.  It's also nice to have that nice walk at the beginning and end of the day after sitting at a desk for 7.5 hours. And thanks to the "My Multi" pass it is an economical way to travel as well!  We can use the "My Multi" on any bus, ferry, or zone 1 trains.  On my walk to the train this morning I noticed we have a plethora of unique business combinations on our baby highway. 

On a leisurely stroll from Wollstonecraft to St. Leonards you can see:

10 mattress/bed frame stores - not quite sure how they are all still in business because it certainly seems like a lot of competition
14 restaurants (2 pizza places and the remainder are a combination of Indian, Thai, and Japanese restaurants)
2 wedding dress shops
2 dance schools
2 fitness centers
2 convenient stores which are only a couple doors apart
2 funeral directors
1 car detailing shop
1 hotel
1 costume shop (Halloween all year long??)
and 1 Girls High school

There is a smattering of other stores and many vacant store fronts.  I wonder if there were more mattress shops and they went out of business because there were 10 other stores??!!

Pacific Highway from Wollstonecraft to St Leonards certainly has a unique combination of stores!