This morning, snow lay all about the camp. Well, not exactly, but the coarse buffalo grass stood stiffly with frost and looked pretty impressive. The temperature inside the caravan was 0 degrees while outside, a chilly -2.8 degrees. We lingered late under a pile of duvets and a blanket we had picked up back in Melbourne, wrapped in pyjamas so cover-all, a strict Morman or Moslem would approve, still too timid to venture on to the cold floor. I finally valiantly braved the elements and started the heater up. Once the temperature rose to a cosy 10 degrees, we emerged, breakfasted, did a load of washing and then headed off for another day’s exploration.
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| Frost! |
Today our target was Queanbeyan, a city of 42,000 just across the border in New South Wales, a mere fifteen minutes from Canberra and ten from the capital’s airport. The river of the same name flows through one end of the CBD and the residential area is stretched across low hills all about.
Queanbeyan became a staging place for travellers crossing the Monaro Plains in the 1820s. A Post Office, a Police Magistrate and of course the all important inns were established in the 1830s, and the town was granted township status in 1838 with a population of fifty people. In the all-important year of 1851, when gold was being discovered all about Victoria, so was it here but in very small amounts. Lead and silver proved to be more lucrative, and within a decade or two, grain cropping added to the wealth of the area. And so it plodded along, until in 1972 it met the first requirement of city status; that the population was 15,000 and that there was surety the numbers were not a blip in the census figures. (This low qualification of city status goes to explain why so many small towns here in Australia are called cities.)
We called into the Visitor Centre and spent some time chatting with the young woman manning the desk. Once we were identified as members of both Australia’s CMCA and New Zealand’s NZMCA, she was keen to quiz us on a broad range of subjects that effect or interest travellers such as ourselves. She is actively lobbying the establishment of Queanbeyan as a CMCA Friendly Town. We finally left with the promotional booklet we had gone there for and warm fuzzies after spending time with such a welcoming woman.
As is so often our habit, we walked down one side of the main street, looking for evidence of an older history than Canberra, but noting dates on a couple of buildings in the 1920s and 1930s. One of the banks did have a plaque revealing the original bank had opened back in the 1850’s but little else was immediately evident. The buildings appeared somewhat jaded although there appeared plenty of activity about. We had passed many small service businesses as we approached the city from the airport, and there had certainly been evidence of great activity there.
However when we entered the Riverside Plaza, the modern shopping centre near the river, we encountered a very different picture. This is where Queanbeyans shop and hang out, and the Plaza has an excellent range of shops. We did our bit injecting our hard earned cash into the economy; buying woollen socks, a beanie for Chris, woolly slippers for me, a haircut for me and while I was waiting my turn in the salon, Chris bought himself a new jacket. After that, there seemed to be little else for us to do in Queanbeyan apart from find a nice place to have our lunch, and this we did, hoping to travel to the top of the Jerrabomberra Hill from where we hoped to look over the whole area west and south of Canberra. Alas, the gate was closed but we found a lovely quiet spot in Queanbeyan’s suburb of Jerrabomberra, by a very small lake next to the Community Centre. Here we dined in the company of a mass of the wonderful birds that inhabit these limestone plains and an elderly Chinese man fishing for either dinner or serenity in the murky storm waters of the pond.
Leaving this very attractive southern suburb of Queanbeyan, we crossed back over the state border in the Australian Capital Territory, marked only by a line on our map but no sign beside the road, and came north again to the Canberra suburb of Fyshwick. Over the past few weeks that we have been receiving Canberra television, we have seen a mass of advertisements announcing the goodies to be purchased in Fyshwick, and so we had come to the conclusion that Fyshwick was obviously the shopping centre of Canberra. Certainly Canberra itself does not seem so, apart from the shops tucked away discreetly behind the trees. We have come to the conclusion that there must be a law in Canberra that disallows billboard advertising, and instruction that all commerce be as camouflaged as possible.
We were also seeking a branch of Office Worksand found this easily enough located in the middle of a light industrial and service area which hardly warrants the title town or suburb. It is simply a business centre where you can find several furniture shops, car painters, engineers, car sales yards, a brothel and of course, Office Works. Somewhere amongst these businesses, according to our Tomtom, there is a DFO (Direct Factory Outlet) however we did not see it. Fyshwick did not meet our expectations, or at least those suggested by the TV ads, however it did meet our one specific practical need of having our printing done.
With the sun still high in the sky, we decided to drive anti-clockwise around Lake Burley Griffen. The roads hug the shore in the main, and where they do not, there are side roads down into reserves providing lovely areas for people to enjoy.
We pulled into a lookout area on the southern side of the lake outlet, where the Scrivener Dam crosses the Molonglo River. Perhaps it was because of this week’s rain; water was pouring out with great force from the spillways, as dirty and brown as the lake it had lingered in. Up on the hills beyond the dam, are the rows and rows of planted trees, all part of the development of the National Arboretum Canberra. This is still in the making, to realise the vision of one hundred forests and one hundred gardens for Canberra in time for the city’s Centenary in 2013. It is set on 250 hectares, six kilometres from the city centre and situated on hills from where one has views over the city, the lake and surrounding forests. By the end of last year, there were eighty three forests representing 35,000 trees already planted. Opening times are limited with it still being a work in progress, and we hope to take advantage of a window on Sunday.
Further around the lake, but still on West Lake, we attempted to gain views of the Governor General’s residence, Government House which is set on a peninsula, amongst fifty four hectares of parkland, in the suburb of Yarralumla, which has grown up around this grand residence.
In 1913 the Commonwealth Government compulsorily acquired Yarralumla Station, a large pastoral property dating from the 1830s. The existing brick homestead was renovated, enlarged and transformed into a vice-regal residence and the first Governor General moved into the house in 1927, when parliament moved from Melbourne into the then new Provisional Parliament Building.
We parked near the gates well-guarded by Federal Police and walked along the fence perimeter, across an arm of the lake on a footbridge and through a pine forest to a point where one is apparently able to see across to the grand residence. From there we could see a wharf from where regal visitors might take a launch down the lake to other important government destinations, but trees shielded any other feature that might have otherwise been visible.
The road continues on around the lake, This Drive and then That Drive, passing the city’s yacht club where we pulled over so Chris could wander about the compound perimeter and gaze covetously at the array of trailer sailers within. I took the opportunity to read the day’s newspaper, however did not get very far; he was soon back.
And so we drove on passing through tree lined streets, past grand houses, many diplomatic residences, and soon joined the government workers all driving home at the end of the week. Despite the traffic, we made our way without event on through the city and on home. Tonight there is evidence of a significant event taking place here at the Exhibition Park, confirmed by a notice pinned up in the ablution block explaining that the camp office will be closed for the next four days. Perhaps we will investigate tomorrow.
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