Telstra's lousy service

I stayed at home on Sunday to tidy up some of the stuff I had in my landlady’s shed. To make sure I knew where everything was prior to my moving out. That didn’t take long. While I was busy I was thinking about the car.

The quote I got from Cooma Diesel had been playing on my mind. I’ve been worried about how I was going to cover the cost of the repair to the turbo. There’s only one real solution and that’s to increase my credit card limit. So, I thought I’d give the finance company a call and see what they say. I’d do it straight away rather than waiting until Monday.

I have a prepaid mobile phone. Being well aware of the time you can spend hanging on the telephone line in a queue before someone half way across the world eventually gets to you, and as I did not wish to use up all the credit on my phone on this type of exercise, I thought to myself, find a public telephone. The local shops were only a 20minute walk from where I lived. So off I went to find a public telephone at the shopping centre. It was a nice day for a short jaunt.

Canberra has catered for foot traffic like I have seen no where else. There is a myriad of footpaths crisscrossing Canberra suburbs. As well as the concrete pavement at the side of the street, which in some suburbs in some states, doesn’t actually exist, these pathways can be found at the back of properties linking one suburb to the next, meandering through parks, and with street underpasses to keep you safe from vehicles. The state of some of the concrete paving is showing its age, but I have to give praise to the idea. It’s a simply wonderful planning feature of Canberra.

Anyway, off I trot strolling under the shady trees to the local shops. I found the public telephone without trouble, but was disappointed to find it out of order. These things happen from time to time. Fortunately, I had my trusty street directory in hand and could see another public telephone marked on the map about 3km away. Anyway, it gave me a chance to explore more meandering footpaths, and see a few more suburbs at a rather more sedate pace.

With a drink in hand I set off. After about half an hour of up hill climb I got to the location marked on the map where the telephone box should have been, but strangely could not find the telephone box. At times like these you begin to doubt your own map reading skills. It’s so easy by car to drive up and down the street. Perhaps it was hidden behind a tree. Walking around the block takes a bit longer. I was wondering if the street directory was wrong and the telephone booth might have been in a slightly different place from where it was supposed to be. And then I spotted something.

Exactly at the place on the map where the telephone was indicated, and a little further away from the roadway than where I was standing I spotted a flat square of concrete on the ground. It was partially hidden by long grass. A closer look at this concrete slab revealed it to be, in my estimation, about the dimensions of a public telephone booth, having what looked like bolt holes on each corner. The only problem was that there was no telephone booth on top of the slab. I was wondering if this was the fault of the map maker or whether Telstra has just come along and removed it without telling anyone. I was getting annoyed.

I knew I was relatively close to the neighbouring suburb's shops, but getting further and further from home. Well, shopping centres do have public telephones located at them. So, ignoring the sweat that was beginning to pool in spots under my shirt, I once again set off toward the shops. I rested at the top of the hill and took in the view. The rest of the walk to the shops was downhill, and in half an hour I located the shops and public telephone, only to find it too was out of order. I flopped in a nearby park bench staring at the shuttered windows and boarded up doors of the closed shops, and wondering what sort of lousy dung heap of a city I’m living in, and about the lousy service Telstra is providing. The phone wasn’t vandalised it was just making noises other than having a dial tone and it wouldn’t accept my coins. That was it. Give up. Go home.

My sour mood lightened, when crossing a road near a bus stop but what should happen but a bus comes along, and the very bus that would take me home. I’m beginning to hate Telstra.

North vs South

I had an interesting conversation at work. I was talking about some of my experiences on my property search. I was speaking, in a favourable light, about the properties in the south of Canberra, and there was an overwhelming exclamation, “you don’t want to live down there.” As you might gather, I work in a northern suburb and most of the people who work there also live in the northern Canberra suburbs. There is an actual north-south divide between the people here. It reminded me of the Sydney – Melbourne rivalry. Certainly, with my job in the north of Canberra there is an incentive to live locally, for ease of travel.

Though, from my experience of Canberra so far I couldn’t really spot much difference between the north or south. There are posh districts as well as run-down trashy streets distributed all over Canberra. In my observations, the roads, streets, shops, and general appearance of the north seems much like the south. Canberra is pretty much the same where ever you go, but that’s only me.

The only mildly negative aspect I had noticed in the south of Canberra was that there appeared to be more young men hooning around in their hotted up cars; more than I have noticed in the northern suburbs, but that could be coincidence. I also noticed more burn out tyre mark circles in the middle of street intersections in the south, but you get them everywhere, and that too could have been coincidence. I definitely noticed a lot of bent street signs down there, that I haven’t spotted in the northern suburbs. This of course could be a phase. Perhaps the age group of youngsters prone to that kind of behaviour have predominance in the south, that they may have grown out of in the north.

Anyway, despite the pressure of their attempts at persuading me against the south, I won’t let up and will consider everywhere in my real estate hunt.

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.

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.