Secret Suburb: Uncover the hidden treasures of Penrith
AUTHOR of Penrith: The Makings of a City, Lorraine Stacker, has said “Penrith had vision. Sure it had its ups and down, but it didn’t take a backward step”. That’s saying a lot, Jenifer Jagielski discovers.
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AUTHOR of Penrith: The Makings of a City, Lorraine Stacker, has said “Penrith had vision. Sure it had its ups and down, but it didn’t take a backward step”. That’s saying a lot, Jenifer Jagielski discovers.
PRIMA Dance Warehouse keeps you on your toes. Quite literally.
Owner Suzy Parnell fits ballet dancers with their pointe shoes.
Twirling around on their tippy toes may look painful and impossible but Ms Parnell says it is all about the fit.
“Parents will come in with their daughters to buy their first pair of pointe shoes (toe shoes) thinking it’ll only take a few minutes not realising that it takes more time,” she said.
Dancers will spend a couple hours trying on a dozen shoes, standing in every possible position, before finding the perfect one.
“They’re essentially balancing on two little planks,” Ms Parnell said.
Where the toes are (the box) is made of layers of paper and fabric while a thick piece of leather inside the length of the shoe (the shank) gives it the rigidity to stand tall and give appearance of weightlessness.
The recognisable crisscrossed ribbons come last and no, they aren’t just pretty but rather keep the foot in the shoe.
And after all that, they still need to be broken which can be done the hard way or with the help of some “metho” and hammer.
THE name of the fast train bound for the Blue Mountains may seem random but “The Fish” is actually a nod to the conductor of the commuter train that ran from Penrith to Sydney every morning and evening in the 1800s.
Back then, a rather large and loud Scotsman, Jock Heron, affectionately known as “The Big Fish” (just in case you didn’t know, a heron is a fish) drove the train and when it pulled into the station people would say, “here comes the fish”.
When a second and smaller train followed The Fish on the timetable, it became known as chips, thus “fish and chips”.
YOU need a helicopter to travel the 76km from Penrith to Parramatta Park in under 20 minutes, or like William “Billy” Hart did in 1911, a Bristol box-kite aircraft.
While it may not seem like a journey now, Hart’s trip was the first cross-country flight in New South Wales which was deemed “remarkable”.
Shortly after the historic flight, he undertook formal flying tests and was presented with Australia’s first pilot’s licence - Australian Aviator’s Licence Number One.
Hart continued to set flying records and in 1912 opened an aviation school in Penrith.
During that time, he also took cinematographer Ernest Higgins with him many times in order to get footage for films about Australia.
Unfortunately in late 1912, he had a serious accident, crashing a plane of his own design.
He never flew again after that but instead returned to his original profession – dentistry.
THERE is so much more to sake than the little white bottles behind the sushi counter.
Go-Shu Sake Brewery offers tours and tastings.
Managing director Allan Noble said the brewery is perfectly located near the Blue Mountains so the trucks carrying rice from Leeton can get in and out quickly.
On the tour you will learn about the nuances of the ingredients and processes that make the sake so special that 90% of it is imported to Japan.
You also get a short and sweet explanation about the etiquette involved in serving it – both pouring and drinking, which is a sort of bonding gesture.
IF anything can stop the kids from bickering in the back seat, it is the blaring horns and sirens of a shiny red fire engine.
For a few blessed moments, they silently stare at the massive red truck loaded with elaborate equipment with the brave firefighters sitting stoically inside.
So, if you are looking for more than a few minutes of reprieve, you could always take them to the Museum of Fire in Penrith, one of the largest collections of firefighting related items in the world.
Museum CEO Mark White tells how former firefighters provide entertaining tours, interspersing stories of heroism, friendship and even some of the laughable firehouse pranks, as they guide you through the history of the profession, up to modern adaptations and the effects of fire today.
Amazingly, all of this is run as a community-based charity, supported largely by the heavy transport industry.
Fireys really are in a league of their own.
IT IS no secret the Penrith Festival is a fun-filled extravaganza of food and entertainment.
But there is a little more to it than just that.
CEO of Penrith CBD Corporation, Gai Hawthorne, said: “It’s about getting people back in to walk around the CBD and restoring that true sense of community.”
Ms Hawthorne said it is just the tonic for local businesses to have thousands of people wandering around the centre of Penrith.
Don’t miss Poppy Park - the making and planting of 102,804 poppies, each with a fallen soldier’s name to commemorate Anzac Day.
YOU can dance if you want to - or learn how to be a circus performer without having to run away and join the circus.
Who hasn’t wanted to do that?
PAWS owner Liu Brennan said Cirque de Soleil is so popular people want to give it a try.
PAWS is for anyone who wants to have some fun, to those who want a career in the circus.
It is also a fun way to get fit.
WHEN opera-diva Dame Jane Sutherland and her husband, renowned pianist and conductor Richard Bonynge, perform at the opening of your performing arts complex, you know the place is destined for greatness.
And being the only centre in the world Dame Joan Sutherland has lent her name; clearly others believed in that vision as well.
Sutherland had no specific ties to Penrith before she was approached by the council in the mid-80s to see if she’d consider attaching her name to it and to the surprise of many, she agreed.
“I think we were just the first ones in line to ask,” local historian Lorraine Stacker said.
“We took the initiative.”
Now in its 25th year, The Joan Sutherland Performing Arts Centre, aka The Joan, offers award winning theatrical productions for all ages.
It also offers symphonies, an art gallery and the one that would make Joan and Richard quite proud, “the only performing arts venue in Australia that has a significant music teaching facility incorporated as a prime function of its operation”.
ON average every year Aussies spend about 11 days commuting, iWork@Penrith’s Ben Martin says.
It is tougher on those in Penrith who have to commute into the city but Mr Martin has a solution - reduce the commute time to give more time for innovation.
That is part of the thinking for the new shared workspace, iWork@Penrith.
For someone who may not have considered taking a job in Sydney because of the distance, this affords them the ability to avoid that trip – even if just for a couple days.
Mr Martin describes it as “not quite corporate but not quite trendy so it suits different levels of professionalism”.
Located halfway between Katoomba and Sydney, it’s become an ideal place for business, such as ANZ to hold meetings for all their regional branches.
That type of community-focused forward thinking is also one of the reasons that iWork@Penrith is a finalist in the Fair Go For the West awards.
THE Nepean River is long and straight.
That’s why some of the best rowing teams use it for training.
Visiting Hong Kong head coach Chris Perry said the “water conditions are superb”.
The river is often undisturbed with little wind - and it’s long and straight for about 16km. Races are usually about 2km.
Chris says Nepean Rowing Club is very supportive, even letting visiting nations borrow boats.
The next time you see rowers on the water, they just maybe might be chasing Olympic gold.
Follow Jenifer Jagielski on Twitter @moxnixchick
CELEBRATING its bicentennial this year, it is apparent that in those 200 years, so much of Penrith has come about through shear grit and necessity.
After explorer and developer William Cox built a road across the Blue Mountains in 1814, Penrith took hold.
It was a relatively unplanned and transient town – you either travelled past it or stayed overnight before heading west – it grew from a single building in 1815 to a town large enough to warrant a courthouse in 1817 and a post office 10 years later.
Penrith was the third town in NSW to receive electricity (1889), not just to light the streets, as was typical at the time, but for houses and shops as well.
That’s pretty impressive considering that an act to supply electric lighting in London had only been in place since 1882.
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