Four days in Melbourne

It was 10.15pm when I got back to Canberra, after an eight hour trip. Eight hours seems to be the time it takes me to drive between Canberra and Melbourne. I don’t quite know how I did the trip in seven and a half hours on my first run through, but that was in the MR2. Maybe I was speeding.

The speedo in the EXA reads high – in so far as I can tell 110 on the dial is actually 100, and 120 is actually 110km/hr. The highway speed check systems that are put on the highway every now and again are a great service. Though I have to wonder why so many of them have been installed on sections of the road that are on a slope. This is a difficult situation for people driving a standard car without cruise control. I find I’m forever adjusting the throttle to try and maintain a constant speed to compare it with the over head indicator. The trouble with that is that I could be accelerating or decelerating at the point in the road where you pass the speed sensor, which kind of makes the whole thing pointless.

It was a fabulous trip, and with the new tyre fitted the vibration that worried me on the last trip was gone. I enjoyed it immensely, except for the last couple of hours from Gundagai to the ACT, at night. I don’t have a heater in the car. The return trip contrasted with the run to Melbourne with the sun in my eyes. I have to wonder if when engineers and surveyors are planning highways they consider just how they can annoy motorists, for a bit of mischief. I can imagine them sitting in their site office looking at a topographic map of the district where the road is planned to run, and considering the options of where to site the road. I can just imagine a handful of young civil engineering graduates who might have been sitting around in a site office under a shady tree in a paddock in the middle of nowhere, before the Hume Highway had been built. I can imagine these highway engineers in a conversation, joking around, wondering where the sun sets in the afternoon, and then having the highway surveyed so that at certain times of the year the sun hits you square in the eyes as you top the crest of a hill. Just kidding; this would never happen, would it? Would it? Surely, not.

After taking advantage of an early break from work (3 hours) I got to Melbourne at about 10.00pm. Squeak, one of our cats, bolted out the door as soon as she saw me. Frightened of the stranger at the door. She always was a scardy cat, but it hasn’t been that long since she’s seen me. And Elsa, our other cat, ignored me. What a welcome. S is obviously the only one who loves me.

What a huge house this place at Warrandyte seems. It’s funny how you forget things. Oh, well, there is an excuse for the cat’s behaviour. The polished wooden kitchen bench tops seemed strange and stood out. I guess I was getting used to the plastic bench tops of where I was in Canberra. The lounge room seemed huge. Outside so much had grown; even the weeds.

I spent more time lazing around than I should have, but made good inroads with the list of things to do. There was a stuck key to the back door that had been broken off in the lock, not long after I left. It took me two minutes to get the broken key from the back door lock, and here was S unable to get out the back door for about 6 weeks. A quick tug with a pair of long-nose pliers and it was easily pulled out. We bought a new hand-truck to help get the old fridge and dishwasher onto the street for the hard rubbish collection that the council had planned. So, that was a bit of good luck that resolved a problem and the expense of taking it to the dump. I should have bought a hand truck years ago. I used it the whole weekend, and advocate anyone who is doing a move go get one. They are very reasonably priced at the large hardware stores.

It’s amazing how the wildlife takes over the things you don’t use often. We had an old fridge in the garage. The fuse blew as soon as I switched it on. I hope I didn’t electrocute any of the little creatures that seemed to be setting up home in there. The fridge and a dishwasher had to be dumped. It was kind of sad dumping these two items. The dishwasher was a Bosch. It was a brilliant appliance. We had it for years and it was superb, and it had been in the house when we bought the place. I must get another Bosch as this one gave fabulous service and lasted for years. So, now we have a gap in the kitchen where the dishwasher used to be. Is it better to have a hole where the dishwasher used to be, or have a dishwasher in place that doesn’t work? The punters, when they come walking through, might see there’s no dishwasher, and take brownie points away from their assessment of the property. On the other hand they might think, “beauty, I can buy my favourite brand.” These things are hard to say, really.

The vegie patch up the back looked great, and I saw the new brick path that S had put in. We were sitting under a shady tree having a cuppa, and I was looking around at the house and garden. There were certainly some things that were wrong with this place, work that needed to be done, but by and large it was a nice property. We had put a lot of time and work into this place and it was about to go on the market. Were we making the right decision? At that moment I could have easily stay there for ever. Have you spotted the image at the top of my blog? The garden was an oasis.

I used to go snow skiing. One of the tips the experienced skier will always pass along to novices: Get fit before your ski trip. The same advice can apply equally to preparing a house for sale and or moving home. I began to do some real work that weekend, and discovered how unfit I was. I found myself becoming exhausted after only a sort time.

I packed the car on Monday with another load of things. You can’t get too much into a car that is not more easily left to removalists, but I think it does help. There are some things I’d prefer not to leave to removalists. Delicates and valuables, mainly, and of course, the newly repaired TV went back with me. Tom Kerkhof Television is the guy I've been using and he's good and resasonably priced. Give him a try if live in the area; though it probably is a bit much driving from Canberra like I did, but what the hell.

Our various trips up and down the Hume Highway have fallen into a routine of stopping at the McDonalds come petrol station, service centre, combination that’s not so far from Benalla in Vic for a snack and fuel stop, and then again at the Gundagai McDonalds in NSW to do the same again. I can’t actually stand McDonalds stuff. McDonalds don’t cater for vegetarians in a big way, the serves are meagre, and the thick shakes, while they taste okay, gives me an after effect in my throat like I might need a doctor’s visit and leaves me with a niggling cough for ages after. The fish roll things McDonalds sell are mostly okay, but once again you don’t actually get much of it, and because few other people actually order them, there never seem to be any ready and you always have to wait for them. At least that means they are fresh. Have you ever tried those apple pies that they do? In my experience, apple pies should be baked. McDonalds apple pies seem to be deep fried which makes them the biggest yuk I’ve ever come across. So, I continue to stop at the same places and phone home for a chat from each one. Poor S was feeling flat when I rang from McDonalds. I hope we can sell up and buy a new place quickly.

Melbourne bound

I’ll be on my way back to Melbourne later this afternoon after work, and really looking forward to getting back there for a few days. I packed a few things last night ready for the trip. My little TV set stopped working recently. That will be going back with me to get repaired at my local television repair shop at Warrandyte.

Canberra drivers

This is a generalisation.

I’m not sure whether Canberra motorists are generally very polite or inexperienced or just happy to operate at a slower pace than I’ve experienced outside Canberra. It’s quaint, though a touch annoying. Let me provide a few experiences.

I doubt there would be too many instances in other cities, when approaching a set of traffic lights if there happen to be two or more lanes and more than one car waiting at a red light, that you’d find a free lane. I find it quite amazing, sort of quaint, when approaching a red traffic light here in Canberra to see three or more cars stopped and waiting for the light to change to green, to see every car queued in the left lane. In most cities I’ve been in, if one of the lanes is free that’s where the second car positions itself. Depending upon how pressed I am for time, when approaching traffic lights I try to assess who’s parked where, trying to spot the slow vehicles from the faster ones and pull up in the lane that is likely to get away quickest. Perhaps it’s a Canberra thing, with fewer people in a rush, and I must say I’ve slowed down mostly, and I too keep to the left leaving the right lane free for anyone who wants to speed away. You could just call it a level of courtesy that you don’t see much nowadays. Of course, you can get around Canberra so quickly; there just aren’t the traffic snarls of the bigger cities.

Though, this sheepishness gets annoying at times. I have been spending some time driving slowly around the Canberra suburbs, looking at the properties as I go. This is on the side streets that are off the main roads, of course. I’ve been driving at perhaps no more than 15 or 20 km/hr at times. You can’t drive much faster than that if you want to have a look at properties as you go. So, when I do this, if I spot a car coming up behind me I move over and drive well to the left, as close to the kerb as possible to allow other road users who might come up behind me get by without trouble. And some do overtake me. Isn’t that what you’d expect? Very few drivers overtake without hesitation. But my experience is that the majority of Canberra motorists slow down and drive behind me. This is crazy. Why don’t the shoot past me too. I have to admit that a few of the roads in the Canberra suburbs are narrow, being little more than a car width, and in those circumstances I pull over and stop. But some streets are so wide they could have lanes painted on the road, and still the cars line up behind me as I dawdle along the road despite me being close enough to the kerb that I could almost be parked. Do they forget that they can overtake me on the opposite side of the road?

Trolling the suburbs

I took a drive through the suburbs of Scullin and Page after work. There is a strange mix of posh houses here and there amongst what look like older public housing. The locals refer to the older government provided housing as ‘govies’. Presumably, a lot of bulldozing of these old houses and rebuilding goes on. Presumably if you can come across the opportunity of purchasing one of these older houses that may be a bit run down, and you can get it for (mostly) land value, you may come out okay building a swish house on the land. These govies often sit on fairly large blocks, compared with what is generally available today, in Canberra. This would also have the effect of gentrifying the district.

I also discovered the suburb of Macgregor. There are definitely some nice properties in this suburb. Though there are distinct divisions between and within the same suburb here in Canberra, and Macgregor is typical of the situation. Macgregor starts on fairly flat land and gradually climbs to reveal views of the northern Canberra suburbs to the Brindabella Mountains in the distance. It’s very obvious that the more wealthy people have built homes that reflect their incomes and live on the slopes with views to the mountain ranges, whereas the poorer residents live on the flats often in ordinary looking houses, sometimes in unkempt streets, with no views. And the views are magnificent in Canberra if you get high enough up the slope.

Auction

I went to a couple of house auctions, only one of which sold. I’m beginning to get around Canberra and feel quite comfortable in getting from one place to the next; never without the street directory of course. I came across Scullin and found it to be a very average looking suburb, which might mean the prices are average. That may not be such a bad thing. There was an auction so I called in to watch what happened. There was only one bidder at the auction and a lot of spectators. This individual was persuaded to open the bidding at $300,000 and with no other action the auctioneer placed a vendor’s bid at $350,000. That’s a staggering jump. Everyone was quiet and the property was passed in. The house had a small lounge room, a small main bedroom with ensuite. Though, the other bedrooms seemed larger than average. This house had a very small yard and there was a lot of work to do to the place. It was rough. I thought the opening bid would have been a fair price. Perhaps I knew less about the location that I thought, and Canberra property prices gave me a shock.

The next house was auctioned in a nearby well to do suburb. It was near the top of a rise with views to Mt Stromlo. A huge crowed of people were present when I arrived. It was a 4 bedroom house on a very large block with a neat but very plain garden. It had a lounge room that was smaller than my place in Melbourne, but 4 very nice sized bedrooms that were accessed from a central passage. It was a simple design but the elegant furnishings made it seem to be a very appealing property. Unfortunately, the extension that had been added looked like a tack on; possibly a veranda had been enclosed. The auction started at $500,000 with $25,000 rises, slowing later, and selling for $775,000. It went well above the reserve. Possibly someone was trying to buy into the street rather than the property. The price didn’t seem worth it. Perhaps that’s just Canberra. Ouch!

Canberra suburbs

I was driving around some of Canberra’s northern suburbs, including Aranda which had a certain appeal to me. I find this a pleasant way of getting to know a town. On the way home from work I’ve been ambling (ie. driving) through the quiet streets having a look at what’s what. There are a lot of leafy suburbs that are brim full of character. And there are some that aren’t. The difference between those with money and those without is very apparent here in Canberra.

I had a look at Cook, Macquarie, Weetangera, and Hawker. There will be some million dollar views to be had from some of the properties at the top of Hawker. I spotted a for sale sign on a house near the top of the hill. I must check it out and see what it sells for when the auction comes up; at least I can see what the views are like.

The Canberra suburb and street names are something to behold. I don’t know how the locals handle many of them, but I can’t get my tongue around half of them: Weetangera, Gungahlin for instance, and how do you pronounce Ginninderra Drive. Anyone for a tongue twister?

Then of course, there is the political influence in Canberra with the naming of its suburbs. How would you like to live in Fraser? And while Fraser has a fine tartan, I don’t think any kind of honour to that clan was intended. I knew a Fraser once; not Malcolm though, but I doubt if the suburb was named after him anyway. Would you want to live in a suburb that reminds you of him? Alternatively, you could go for the suburb of Latham. This name would have little to do with Mark, but the name does have an association that might put some people on edge or swell with pride. Could you live there? I wonder if the suburb names attract people with the associated political views. Perhaps people don’t care.

For the nation’s capital, I’m surprised at the lack of political chit chat that goes on around the traps. The people I’ve come across in my travels here don’t seem to bother with politics, as much as I thought they might. Before I came to Canberra I thought it would have been awash with conversations and gossip about the politicians and their schemes and scandals. Perhaps I don’t mix in the right circles.

Old Bus Depot Market

Canberra has a great little market in a fabulous venue, and the name says it all: the Old Bus Depot Market. Have a look here. It’s all under cover, and there is a wide variety of stalls, which I must remember with Christmas coming up. Who wants to struggle with the heat and flies or wind and rain when you can stroll around the stalls in the shade? There’s a guy there squeezing fresh oranges, and offering a variety of other drinks from the middle ages; an Ethiopian food stall with some spicy dishes; and of course a stack of the regular art and craft traders.

I think I've just given away my preferences: more emphasis to food and drink than craft.

Out and about

I took a drive to Bungendore. This is a little town to the east of Canberra just over the hills, past Queanbeyan, in NSW. What am I saying? Almost everything outside Canberra is in NSW.

Bungendore could be the land of red necks. Maybe it is. Anyway, it was flushed with quite a few tourists including myself who were mostly just ambling aimlessly through the wide streets. There are craft shops and restaurants in Bungendore. It’s definitely a town that’s trying to entice the tourist. It'd certainly be a town to worth a second look.

This is a picture of the main street and here are a few more of the town. The only thing that had any lasting affect on me was the discovery of a great little photo studio. Well, more accurately it was a photo gallery that sold nicely framed photographs. But these photographs were some of the best panoramas of Australian landscapes I’ve seen in a long time. Seeing this place made my day. Click here and spend some time looking at this guy’s stuff. I used to like to call myself a photographer, having made quite a hobby of it in the past. Michael Scott Lees has done wonders to support photography as an art form. His work is absolutely superb. Look for yourself. Don’t miss it.

I took a drive through Canberra’s northern suburbs. Some of them are very squashy. I find it ironic that this ‘bush capital’ is plonked in a place in Australia that, on the face of it is swimming in space, and yet so many properties in Canberra have very small block sizes.

If I get into my car I can be on the road for less than 10 minutes and be in the country on a highway driving though fields of pasture with cows grazing. There are many places in Canberra where you can drive for several kilometres at 80 or 100km/hr as you drive from one suburb to another (yes, within the city) and not see and single house as you go. In fact, if you look to the left or right as you go, you’d think you were 100s of miles away from anywhere. Canberra is designed with suburbs squashed into ‘islands’ that are linked by main roads that are surrounded by bushland. In its own way, this design is unique and it’s a pleasure to experience, but if one of the costs of this design is to force people to live closer to their neighbours than is comfortable than I think the design needs review.

It’s not uncommon to see houses in Canberra occupying the majority of the building block. I seem to recall a time, not so long ago, when most houses occupied less than half the land area of the plot. A consequence of the small block/large house syndrome is that there is almost no rear garden space, and at best a very small front garden space, and with narrowing streets some suburbs have a very claustrophobic feel to them. The rear of some of these properties are so small that rather than being a space for a garden it is really just a yard to store a few odds and ends. What happened to the quarter acre block, I wonder?

There are times when people need to get out of the house. If you have space in the back yard you might willingly sit and rest your bones under a tree, and if you expect value for your time in any kind of personal retreat you really need a space large enough that gives you the feeling of escape rather than being confined between the rubbish bin and the hot water heater as you sit on the back door step. This claustrophobia isn’t the same everywhere in Canberra, but I find it depressing to see houses built so close to each other that the guttering on the eaves is almost touching the guttering on the eaves of the neighbour’s house. (When I say almost touching, let me get specific: think the width of your finger. Not kidding.) For a ‘planned’ city, I don’t see much planning here.

I think there is something lacking in the architect’s plan when it includes modern and wonderful interiors but overlooks the areas outside. Though in fairness to the architect, perhaps it’s an issue of boosting the profits of the developer at the expense of the punters by trying to squeeze more blocks of land out of the one development. Architects and planners of Australia: get a grip – start correcting these mistakes.