Getting around

There was a Nissan EXA advertised for $150 in the newspaper. The turbocharger in my EXA needs to be replaced. And for that price I might be able to remove the turbo and throw the rest of the car away. Well, that was my idea in checking it out. There must have been a lot of interest as it had been sold by the time I got there. Anyway, it didn’t have a turbo. The turbo had been removed, extractors fitted, and the air inlet pipe that would normally have gone to the turbo went straight to the inlet manifold. Now that’s an interesting idea I could use if my turbo gets much worse. The car is beginning to put out some smoke when I decelerate, to say nothing of the noise that comes from the engine when the turbo kicks in under hard acceleration. It sounds terrible and I try to avoid it. Consequently, when I accelerate from traffic lights I do so gingerly. I doubt if too many other road users appreciate my sluggish driving habits.

It was a nice day so I spent the time driving around the Canberra suburbs, ending up on Mt Ainslie, and what a wonderful view can be had from there. I’m pleased to be able to get around Canberra okay. Though, you can’t go to anywhere unfamiliar without a street directory. In fact, I saw a couple of people walking in a quiet suburban street one evening after work, and one of them was carrying a street directory in their hand. There’s hardly a straight street in Canberra, and with so many no through roads, crescents, and curved roads it’s so easy to loose your way or sense of direction.

My landlady advised me she is having the house open for inspection on Sunday. I’ll have to clean my part of the house beforehand. She's selling her house privately; no agents for her. They do take hefty commissions. So, I'll be interested to see how things go. It's an idea I have been toying with. She has a very plain ‘for sale’ sign in the middle of the front garden, and when she has an 'open house' places a sign at the end of the street directing any passers by toward the house, and another sign on the footpath out the front. And then just waits for punters.

I found the car wrecking yards. They seem to congregate in the nearby NSW town of Queanbeyan. Canberra must be too good for this type of business. Anyway, none of them had any turbos available that were suitable for my car. I’ll keep my eyes open.

There is a sharp contrast between Queanbeyan and Canberra. It doesn’t take long to get used to Canberra’s clean and tidy appearance with few electricity power lines on the streets, no corner shops, and curved suburban streets that generally don’t go anywhere. Most other places, including Queanbeyan, are built in a rectangular street pattern, where there is often a corner shop, with ribbon shopping strips on the main roads as you get closer to town. On the other hand, Canberra tends to have clusters of shops grouped into tiny shopping precincts. I went into town for the first time; they mostly call it Civic. The centre of Canberra is very unlike most other CBDs. The majority of the shops seem to be built into a mall, though I must say, a very large mall. But when I say mall, I don’t mean like Rundle Mall or the Bourke Street Mall. Think about your local Westfield shopping centre mall, and then think much, much bigger. It took me ages to find a petrol station in Canberra. You’ll seldom see any on a main road, as in most other cities. Usually they are tucked away in the suburbs out of sight. It must be something to do with having a clean tidy image.

One of the most delightful things about getting around Canberra is the system of main roads. They generally all have 80km/hr speed limits, which is very different from other cities. Travelling from one suburb to the next is best done by getting to your nearest main road, zipping up to 80, and the road signing is good here, and then getting off at some side street near your destination. I used to drive a taxi and you could often cut through just about any suburban side street and find yourself bypassing almost as many traffic lights as you wished, but you can’t do this in Canberra because so many suburban streets are no through roads or loops that take you back to the same road you just left. Of course, the advantage of that is that most streets in Canberra are quiet and serene.