A lack of blogging endeavour is reflective of my position of relative stasis in the last couple of months. Still, if you were to choose a period to stay put in Canberra then this may well be it. For while my feet have largely been rooted in the capital, change has very slowly and subtly washed over me.
The late summer lingering of balmy days and comfortable nights has lingered longer than usual. On the streets, an initial shock of arboreal colour mellowed and probably wanted to turn back green. The Anzac Day ritual of firing up the heaters was drastically postponed, as armies marched in 27 degrees. Meanwhile, the western ranges burned – in a controlled way – but the taste of smoke pervaded regardless, transforming the late afternoon skies blood red as the clocks wound back. Only now in May does Canberra’s autumn peak. And trainer socks dissipate from the laundry.
Welcome – at last – to the annual autumn edition! It began, perhaps, around the start of April with daytime temperatures dropping below thirty degrees, and overnights to single digits. This is a milestone of sorts, but one that is bordering on uncomfortably hot for visitors from Middle Buntingland-Upon-Farage. Not long after Dad had left these shores with a decent tan, Jill arrived on a relatively last-minute trip to Australia, and came to Canberra seeking a few days escape from the noise and hustle of Sydney. So what better way to flee than in the hills, to that very Australian bush, the wilderness on our doorstep.
In truth, the walk up the Yerrabri Track in Namadgi National Park was only part of a bigger equation. An equation whose solution was a delicious bird roll or two. N+J*OzNP(vt)+C0les=br. It’s a concept that has evolved from very preliminary experiments at the New Years’ Test in Sydney, refined to perhaps its ultimate manifestation on the top of Mount Kosciuszko. Replicated many times since, it is now a requisite of any encounter between Jill and I. Recently, each of us have tried to outdo one another in the bird roll stakes and today, on a rocky platform overlooking peak serenity of an abundant emptiness, I may have taken the lead. For now.
Bird rolls are not the only thing that are becoming customary. Having zig-zagged up Kangaroo Creek in Royal National Park and almost losing a boat on the Bellinger River, we have since become more finessed in guiding bright pieces of plastic upon water. Okay, I think we got up close and personal with the Norfolk Broads last year, but just the once. And this time – my first time self-propelled on Lake Burley Griffin – there was no shrubbery with which we embarrassed ourselves. Indeed, it was an incident-free beautiful late afternoon pedal in a kayak, the sun going down earlier than the day before and a noticeable coolness making itself known.
Since then, around the lake shore, it has been peak biking conditions under calm blue skies and ambient warmth. Only more recently have shorts been swapped for long legs, T-shirts for hoodies, short socks for long. Like the weather, autumn evolves in patches, materialising in pockets; a glade untainted green here, trees stripped bare there. In between an emergence of yellows, oranges, reds and browns, meaning that every day there is something different to see from the vantage of two wheels.
But it is at this point in the year that ambling in Canberra’s suburbia comes into its own, usurping the attractions of its lakeside coves, bushland hills, and concrete edifices. It’s the peoples’ Canberra, the homes and gardens and streets that real, mostly normal, everyday Bruces and Sheilas like you and I live in. Okay, the more affluent burbs have the lions share of autumnal splendour, but pockets of colour burst out from pavements far and wide. Even down near the local youth centre, the skulking youngsters seem softened by an explosion of nature’s confetti.
It is in these streets, around these crescents, besides these storm drains that I can happily wander. In autumn, an insipid walk becomes a quaint stroll. Not that there’s total serenity; as the number of leaves fall, the number of shrieking cockatoos rise. Thankfully there are a few black ones to offer some grace.
In the afternoons it is still warm and golden, and coffee can still be taken alfresco and still with cake. But now, as May nears its end and winter will soon nominally start, the real change sets in. It started in shorts and T-shirts, humid hikes and toasty paddles, with a cold beer to wash the day down. It ends in an Orange Sky hoodie, bracing rides, electric blankets and the warming spice of a glass of red. Standing still, embracing change.
While memories can be magnified or maligned by multiple visits, there is something special about breaking new ground. A stop around South West Rocks and Hat Head National Park provided many highlights, one of them being that this was new territory for me, Dad and the car. We all quite liked the drive alongside the Macleay River, with its green watery pastures, tiny weatherboard towns and cowbirds. We all liked a lot less the potholes around the national park campground by the beach. We were fond of the lighthouse and its views, but not so keen to traverse a rough track to some mythical walking trail. Still, if we hadn’t switched to a different walk we might have missed the sun going down. Everything works out for the best in the end.
The beach is pitch black barring the beam of light circling upon the lighthouse. The sound of waves suggest ocean somewhere vaguely nearby, a roar magnified without any other disturbance at night. The sea breeze is cooling and evaporative, seemingly keeping the blood-sucking bugs at bay. The fine sand sustains a tripod and the sky offers an infinite, ever-expanding canvas. The photos may not have turned out brilliant, but the shared experience, the learning, the new adventure was. I daresay it was even better than Eastenders. And on that bombshell, bom, bom, bom, bom-bu-bu-bu-bum.
It’s taken a while for summer in Canberra to arrive, with the inevitable false starts and the fake summer that usually emerges for a week or so in October before retreating with startling rapidity. The variable weather conditions are largely a boon for nature which bursts into a frenzy of colour and gargantuan jungle of weeds. One minute you have a perfectly respectable outside patio area, the next it’s a (*culture alert*) frenzied sketch from Rousseau. Best to try and ignore the weeding and admire how the professionals manage things at the Botanic Gardens.
There is a point for me in which winter in Canberra is definitely over and summer is certainly on the way. It’s that day when you decide to walk in the shade to cool down and protect, rather than seek out a warming sun and its melanoma vengeance. You know you should get your floppy hat out despite looking like a numpty in it. And largely avoid the midday sun for disproven fear that it is this that is making your hair grey and not the inevitable march of age and genetics.
Anyway, the best times are the day’s extremities as the amount of sunshine increases. Those cool mornings when Wattlebirds wake you up at 5am and you could be tempted to a) get on your bike for a beautiful lakeside ride of virtue or b) turn on the radio in the hope that you will doze back to news of Cooper Cronk being signed by the Northern Beaches Numbats. And, at the other end, there’s those lingering light evenings, in which twilight golf is a possibility and cold beer and barbecues become a more frequent consideration.
All this water, all this sunshine, all this warmth and cool change. A time for shorts and hoodies and rainbows, many rainbows. Rainbows and butterflies as summer seems to assert itself with greater authority. But still Christmas hovers as a lottery between scorching bushfires and mild drizzle; no doubt it will be 35 degrees for a classic roast or a chilly 18 for a poolside barbie with novelty oversized prawns. Only time will tell.
It’s kind of a winter thing, a cross-hibernation leisure shut down enforced by financial year leftovers and inevitable doses of bugs that may or may not be flu but love to linger. Canberra has had more than its fair share of cold, but – the last week apart – it has been phenomenally dry, with big clear skies bringing about pleasant afternoons before ruining the whole mood with sharp, sadistic frosts.
It has been pleasant enough – out of any wind, with a little time spare – for a few walks into the bush. There are Red Hill ramblings of course, but throw in a few Mount Taylor hikes, Black Mountain bush and Botanic Garden explorers, Mount Ainslie parkways, and add a random sprinkling of Cooleman Ridge countryside ambles and Urambi Hills thrills and there’s enough to keep reasonably sane and fit. Especially when the bike is gathering cobwebs.
And a few strategic recommendations for winter? Anything with gravy and a glass of red helps; get out in the warming afternoons even if this means working at night; and, in the midst of analytical bewilderment, book a flight to the UK, where the daytime temperature will probably end up being the same anyway! See you oop North….
It is a time to savour suburban walks, in the comfortable pockets of Canberra that will never be in reach. Foresight planted deciduous trees for garden suburbs for genteel homes. As temperatures drop to a level mild and amicable and still warmer than England in a hot flush, the streets now enliven, the crescents glow, the neighbourhoods flourish in a makeover both incremental and dramatic. Go on certain days and a regiment of wheelie bins will parade upon the kerb, afloat in an ocean of nature’s litter.
Easter is the most perfect weekend as the warm kiss of autumn melts any eggs undiscovered by marauding imps. I don’t recall Easter egg hunts as a child; are these more a thing now, coordinated through Facebook groups and discoverable like Pikachu? Waiting until Sunday until you were permitted to make yourself sick on chocolate and then topping up with half price eggs on Monday was more my kind of thing. If I have made any progress in life, then let it be measured by cake, and I can mark the creation of a chocolate and hazelnut meringue as one of my greatest achievements.
Here there is the best of both worlds, with coffee available a little further down the road at the Moon Rock Cafe. This is attached to the Deep Space Communication Complex where – in my head at least – gentle mutterings from Professor Brian Cox are transmitted to distant worlds in the hope that it would sufficiently soothe angry aliens from undertaking imminent invasion. If you feel small atop Gibraltar Rocks, here you are infinitesimal, insignificant beyond belief. Yet at the same time, in the warm sun with caffeine and a bonus chocolate egg, your existence is undeniably amazing and incredibly fortunate.
Tucked away in a quiet corner by Lake Burley Griffin, largely forgotten apart from the odd dog walker and camera wielder, the Lindsay Pryor Arboretum is an unbridled delight. A kaleidoscope of colours adorns the different varieties of oak, elm, birch and poplar. There are no visitor centres and no playgrounds, no cafes and no sculptures. The air is calm, the light soft, the mood understated. Occasional tunnels of foliage play at being England. And you could imagine, under these boughs, a snap election might just be called.
What does one do in a hot summer which features only intermittent work? Well, trips to free air-conditioned sites of interest for a start: the cinema, the library, the gallery, the mall. Occasionally the office, mostly for a coffee and catch up. Bike rides bring a nice breeze early in the day or into the late evenings. And cooling refreshments comfort: my addiction to frozen drinks persisting (but now slowly fading), a cold beer or cider in the evenings, Dare iced coffee and occasionally something a little more extravagant.
Walks are practically a daily feature (they usually are), often on Red Hill (they usually are). Again, the early mornings or late evenings work best, the low light emphasising the sweeping golden grass and colouring the white trunks of gums a laser red. Sun sinks late over the ranges and smouldering skies are common. This is better evening entertainment than what’s on TV, as post-tennis, post-holiday reality shows make a comeback, spewing forth with abandon.
Daytime strolls are better suited to places such as the Botanic Gardens, where shade is more forthcoming and the rainforest gully drops temperatures by five degrees. Moisture emerges here from the watering, and continues in the cafe serving a fairly average coffee. But to grab a takeaway and sit under a tree reading a book or interview transcripts is a fine way to spend an hour (and improve the experience of reading interview transcripts).
Away from nature for a moment, summer in Canberra also promises event after event as the populace makes the most of the time before entering deep freeze. There are blockbuster exhibitions in the galleries and museums; there are fetes and swimming carnivals and cricket matches all over the suburbs; fireworks, flags and protests in equal measure adorn Australia Day; and the National Multicultural Festival brings oodles of noodles in a celebration of diversity that ought to be protected. In the spirit of inclusion even certain redheads are catered for.
At Burrinjuck Dam – reached via coffee stop in Yass – water levels are high and this is a natural lure for cursed boatpeople who frolic about in a flurry of jetskis and Chardonnay lunches. Away from the excess surrounding the boat ramp, quieter coves and a cutesy scattering of cottages for those dam workers heralded surprise. And a reasonably flat, empty road on which to have a pedal.
My how this has grown since I was one of the few to trudge round on a pleasant evening a few years back snapping pictures of a handful of the capital’s illuminated buildings. Now practically every city does something similar on landmarks more well-known. But Canberra’s Enlighten seems to be ever more popular, judging by the crowds streaming from one site to another on a Saturday evening. Many are also here to queue for food in the night markets, which is entirely predictable; after several years you learn to visit midweek and come early, to guarantee delights such as a bao trifecta, Korean chilli pork fries, and deep fried ice cream.
Still, with every up there’s a down and I have lost mountain views. I have also moved into an area where there is a yappy dog. I only write about this now because I just heard it, again. I always seem to find myself in a neighbourhood with a yappy dog. I think everyone does. There seem to be yappy dogs everywhere these days, coming over here, taking our peace and quiet. They frequently pester me on Canberra nature walks too, usually roaming free because their owners don’t need to pay heed to the numerous signs regarding leads and wildlife protection and all that silly nonsense. Still, at least I can see the mountains on these walks, and the dog yapping can be tolerated with such rewards.
Take Dairy Farmers Hill, which sits in the National Arboretum on the western fringe of Canberra. I cycled up here a few times in the past, but was usually too close to fainting to really appreciate the 360 degree panorama. Driving one evening with the comfort of air con was somewhat more agreeable. The sun dipping onto and over the Brindabellas offered a treat, while the proximate lumps of Black Mountain and Mount Ainslie received a farewell glow. There were no dogs.
You don’t notice from afar, but these ranges are peppered with giant, rounded granite boulders stacked like clumps of frozen peas that have been left in the freezer for far too many years. These boulders congregate quite generously up on Orroral Ridge, where a series of slightly neglected tracks lead to rocks named for their resemblance to animals and people and other inanimate objects which aren’t rocks. Such is the profusion of rocks that geologists have wet dreams, climbers drool onto their harnesses, and random waifs and strays seeking mountain air delight in the summer coolness of virtual caves formed in the hollows of a cluster of boulders.
I wasn’t expecting much from this walk – in truth it was something to do in a lull while my washing dried. Plus being practically the last remaining marked trail I hadn’t been on in Namadgi I felt a little obliged to complete it. The word ‘swamp’ was hardly enticing, with images of squelchy boggy plains, rotting carcasses and festering mosquitoes. But it was actually quite a delight, rising steadily through lofty Peppermint Gums, bypassing a few more giant boulders, and meandering through button grass and boardwalks under blue skies and fluffy clouds.
The swamp turns out to be a fen, as the information board at the end of the walk explained. I’m not really sure of the difference, but it was fairly less swampy than I imagined. A bench here overlooked a river of vivid green grass, lapping at tall forest and rocky outcrops. Being now beyond midday it was the perfect place for a simple homemade sandwich and, once again, for all the expensive meals and gourmet plate ups*, can there be anything more satisfying than a bushwalk sandwich? I don’t think so.
Having now spent over nine years (with interruptions) in everyone’s favourite Australian city you would think I’d have exhausted every nook, crevice and scrubby hilltop. Forget nine years…many would say two days is sufficient, and even then you might have to drag things out with a wander around the National Archives, surely the least compelling sounding attraction of the lot (which might explain why, still, I have never been). But no, it turns out Canberra has even more suburbs and scrubby hilltops than you can ever imagine.
Nevertheless, it was with some contentment that I found a reasonably close reasonably decent coffee stop one Saturday morning, as part of a bike ride on the many accommodating paths in the Tuggeranong Valley. One path circumnavigates its lake, which is a poor man’s Burley-Griffin but amiable enough. Others cut through the various patches of grass set between the backs of brick houses and alongside storm drains. One route takes you up towards Oxley Hill, a reasonable but not unobtainable test of legs, and another does the long uphill drag back to Wanniassa, in which aforementioned legs turn to jelly. I may be being just a touch healthier, but with this comes justification in feasting on yet another, sadly Antipodean, cream tea.
From what seemed to be shaping up to be a relatively mundane autumn – with lots of early browns and leaf losses noticeable – a week which turned from warmth and sunniness to a condition of damp mildness appeared to have fashioned a more elaborate state of affairs. And amongst this fading technicolour the birds lingered too. Foraging and flirting and feasting, the fruitful trees bedecked with gang-gangs.
gbpilgrim 