It’s known as ‘the swamp’, but my suburb is more than just frogs and waterfowl

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Discover The Ponds: a lively Sydney suburb where nature and community collide.

The Ponds, also affectionately referred to as “the swamp”, is located about 40 kilometres northwest of the Sydney CBD.

Sixteen years ago, I followed a pothole-ridden road to a developer’s sales office, boasting a vision shrunk to a small-scale model no larger than a family’s dinner table. That pothole-ridden road is now the four-lane Schofields Road, and the vision was not only realised but surpassed expectation. Back then, I purchased my home off a stage-one blueprint, and 10 months later moved in with the frogs, waterfowl and foxes, embracing the nickname “Princess Fiona”, and called “the swamp” home.

The Ponds is snuggled between Kellyville, Rouse Hill and Schofields and is a short stroll to Tallawong Station to catch the Sydney Metro; the transport system that joins the isolated west with cosmopolitan Sydney. Only it is more of a one-way system, where Ponds people travel to and from Sydney, but other Sydneysiders don’t often travel to The Ponds.

The alternate route to Sydney CBD, thanks to an eTag and the governments toll cap, is a choice of motorways. The M7, M2, the Lane Cove Tunnel, Gore Hill Freeway, Sydney Harbour Bridge, Harbour Tunnel or Western Distributor. It is best to save the pennies and catch the Metro.

The name was designed to reflect the geography of the area. It is a suburb cut in half by Second Ponds Creek (coming first is not essential).

This creek is the habitat of red-bellied black snakes, who are not only good swimmers but perhaps feel hemmed in by humans as they sunbathe on paths and tracks as a reminder that snakes own the nature strip. Aside from the snakes, the spiders are a reminder to all that Australiana still exists.

In a typical Aussie youth endeavour, the kids have constructed a rough BMX track deep in the nature strip. This may get up the nose of local council authorities, but it provides enjoyment, individual expression and reward for enterprise to those who ride it.

The Ponds Creek has the normal cycle of dry spells and floods. The occasional flood softens and replenishes the native growth, while flushing away most of the accumulated rubbish. And for those who have reached the age where they’re interested in bird watching, it’s easy to spot – through the clouds of mosquitos – a variety of wetland and bush birds.

Apart from the wildlife, there is the animal kingdom of pet owners. Instagram-worthy cats, and dogs that come with their own unspoken hierarchy; a pecking order dictated by the type of nod owners receive on passing. Greyhound rescues are greeted with a compassionate, charitable nod. There is the eye-roll nod for those with dogs ending in “oodle”. A smirk nod at the only Samoyed. The sucked-in lip nod towards the Chow Chows. The hesitant nod for the Rottweiler owners (what are they protecting aside from their ego?) and lastly, the grimace for those without a pedigree.

The houses are large, on small blocks so favoured by new developments, and ooze middle-class affluence. Many are uniformly dull in conforming architecture and sympathetic earthy colours. The occasional example of individualism and extravagance is an exotic car, flash boat or large caravan squeezed onto a driveway or parked in a side street to disrupt neighbourhood traffic.

And then there’s the Zammit family, who have refused to sell out to developers offering $50 million, according to reports. They own a prime five-acre block right in the middle of The Ponds – with no trees, but there are no leaves in their gutters, no bushfire danger, and they can see the snakes coming.

The original area of the suburb, once covered in Australian bush, was cleared during development, after which the builders planted trees along the streets. Over the years, residents have either preserved the street treescape or brutally lopped or completely removed the trees to live in their own concrete and tar jungle.

On weekends, Ridgeline Drive sings to the musical engines of Japanese bike enthusiasts, V8s, GTRs, a few Lamborghinis (they must be the Rottweiler owners), who not only show off their toys, but it’s a subtle wink that they can afford a house with a double garage and the cost of petrol.

The Ponds is very multicultural, consisting of a large number of Anglo-Celtic Australians and a substantial population of South-East Asian and Indian migrants. The local shopping village is a cultural and culinary treasure trove of restaurants and trendy cafes that caters for humans and their pooches.

The biggest flex for the area is the waterways, ponds and tracks for cyclists, joggers and dog walkers who remember to bring their spider-web thwacking stick, but never the ever-elusive poop bag. There is also a free outdoor gymnasium, that makes most residents mutter, “I’ll start tomorrow”.

With a huge selection of parks, playgrounds, picnic areas, and plenty of sporting ovals, weekends are filled with soccer, tennis, baseball, cricket, basketball and pickleball. When the sporting fields are not in use, the barbeques are fired up for get-togethers, cooking sausages or seekh kebabs. The odd bikini-clad sunbakers also take over, dreaming the creek’s bank is prime real estate and better than the shores of Bondi Beach.

Integrating art into the environment, The Ponds comes with quirky land, water and Aboriginal sculptures. From a seven-metre centrepiece in the lake to miniature life-like houses in the trees for the birds, there are metal figurines and mosaic seating that leaves an impression on the onlooker and their backside.

If Sydneysiders felt inclined to visit, apart from eyeballing the sculptures, they could eyeball the sculptured neighbours. Just don’t step on the snakes.

Darcy-Lee Tindale is a Sydney writer.