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.