Almost not worth crossing the road for
The windswept platform at Tottemham station overlooks a pretty squalid looking retail strip on Sunshine Road. The rail line sits high on an embankment at this point, which, combined with a parking clearway, hems the little single story shops into a canyon of traffic. First impressions werent therefore particularly promising.
Not deterred, we set out for an explore. There’s about 10 shops in the row, including two ”massage’ outlets. The meagre pedestrian traffic along the strip included a couple of visitors in seeming need of muscular ‘relief’. Most of the rest of the shops were closed up.
Yet there’s two sparkles to this otherwise pretty dismal scene. Just east of Ashley Street is a well stocked Indian, Bangladeshi and Fijian (presumably Fijian Indian) grocery. I partook of some tasty snacks.
At the western end of the strip is Mr Mobility, a hillariously inexplicable shop selling the natural retailing siblings of mobility aids, manequins and antiques. Comprehensively bizarre. Thoroughly entertaining.
the suburbanauts 
hi – nice to meet you today at my local shopping strip… can’t wait to see what you write. 😉 Interested to read this entry too as I have friends who live close by and we often drive past this strip on our way to their house. I like your observation about Melbourne – it’s a diverse city and not everyone is hanging out on the laneways… I once had a customer (NZ tourist) come into where I work in the CBD and get very angry with me when I couldn’t tell her the central place where all the laneways with the funky shops was. “Well, this is the city so you’re in it?” That wasn’t a good enough answer…
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