Saturday, January 10th

A Walk in the Park

My failure didn’t let me sleep. First thing in the morning, still tired from a restless night, I researched and booked a hotel room in central Canberra. This, after all, was a serious game and warranted a day of staying put.

Having taken care of that urgent matter, I was finally free to take off. Unlike other capital territories, Australia’s isn’t an urban sprawl at all. Almost the entire south is covered by Namadgi National Park, using up just shy of half of the territory’s area. This was where I was headed. Again failing to follow my map and taking wrong turns, it took me a bit longer than anticipated. To make the hunt even more fun, the authorities had devised roadworks and strange detours.

But eventually I did reach Tharwa. Here I could either have kept going south on a road that eventually would loose its asphalt or turn right into a ring road through the central rural part of the territory and into Canberra. Right it was.

The land out here was grassland with changing density of trees. The grass was green not yellow. All around there were once pointy mountains in various states of being made unpointy. Off in the not at all far distance was a proper mountain range.

A side road promised to go exactly there: up to something called Corin Dam, about twenty kilometres away. It started climbing immediately and entered into dark forests where it became very narrow and twisty.

A side road to the side road led to Gibraltar Falls. The information board declared it to be one of the largest waterfalls in the ACT with a vertical fall of fifty metres. Which bore the question, how many waterfalls are there even in the rather small ACT and, as a more general follow-up, what exactly is the minimum defining requirement for a waterfall?

I dutifully wandered down to the actual falls which, as ever, failed to impress me. In my book, waterfalls are the lighthouses of the mountains and generally very overrated. As I returned to the parking lot, another car arrived. The occupants looked at the sign and turned around without even bothering to get out. Apparently, I am not alone in my opinion.

A hell of a lot more bends, past a forest entertainment park with abseiling, a water slide, and other vaguely educational activities, the road eventually ended after crossing Corin Dam. The dam and its reservoir were the uppermost in a series of installations for the territory’s drinking water supply. The reservoir’s water level was at an elevation of 955 metres with Canberra at 577 metres.

A trail started at the parking lot. It was indicated as a four hour walk to an intersection with another road. That didn’t sound very exciting and I rather turned around and drove down again. There wasn’t all that many cars on the road, but quite a few cyclists were out in their both chemical and comical battle dress.

Back on the ring road, it started to descend, too, leading to yet another water supply installation: Cotter Dam. It doubled as a popular recreational destination for city folk as there were plenty of parking lots and picnic areas under protective trees. As noon was nearing, the road became rather busy on its last few miles back into town.

It had one more detour in stock, though: Mount Stromlo and its observatory. The mountain was one of the formerly pointy ones that had long since been ground round. The observatory looked rather serious, with plenty of residential buildings and a number of telescopes.

The first thing I found, though, was the shell of a former telescope. In January 2003, several bush fires in the mountains turned into a ravaging firestorm that completely destroyed the observatory and caused severe damage, even death, to the western suburbs of Canberra. Up on Mount Stromlo, five telescopes, several buildings, and large amounts of research were destroyed.

I walked around a bit but the outside of telescopes and research buildings isn’t really the most entertaining thing in the world. It was time, I decided, to check into my hotel and have a look at the city.

It had been overcast all day, which was excellent news, as it meant I wouldn’t need the stupid hat for walking. It was still rather hot, twenty seven degrees, as I left the hotel just off London Circuit and walked south across the many high-speed roads towards the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. The lake separates the commercial centre of the City from the political centre around Capital Hill. It is quite an impressive lake. Big enough, in fact, to have seagulls lurking around. A cycle and walking path lead all the way around it, marked out as 28 kilometres or a whopping seven hour walk.

I started walking along the lake front. I could have crossed towards Capital Hill over the Commonwealth Avenue bridge just in front of me, but decided to stay on this side and use Kings Avenue bridge instead. This way, I had a splendid view onto the waterfront across. There were two large concrete buildings: the vaguely Roman temple looking National Library just right of the bridge and the decidedly seventies castle looking High Court. There seemed to be more such buildings but they were thankfully hidden by the trees along shore.

This side of the lake was all grass and trees with some buildings lurking further back. It felt like the campus of an unreasonably rich university, not like a national capital. On the other hand, it was quite apt that the defining feature of the capital of an almost completely empty country was empty space.

From somewhere ahead the Westminster Quarters played. The origin seemed to be a tall bell tower on an island ahead. It was formed of three triangular pillars that in turn were arranged to form a triangle. The tower was fifty metres tall. The pillars where connected by the bell house in the upper third.

The map identified this as the National Carillon. Once I had crossed over to the island, I found more information. A carillon, it transpired, was what Germans call a Glockenspiel, except a really, really large one. This one had fifty three bells. The three pillars contained in fact elevators and stairwells.

From up close, the perspective effects created by the various triangular shapes made the whole thing look like something Escher had had nightmares about.

After almost an hour I finally arrived at the second bridge. As I crossed it, I pondered the fact that a city whose monstrous dimension clearly made it a city for the motorcar had paid parking pretty much everywhere. That didn’t seem fair. At least around the lake parking seemed free on weekends though. So, if you plan on visiting Canberra, do so on weekends.

Being here on a Saturday had the added bonus that the political part of town south-west of the bridge was pretty much deserted. There were a few cars but I seemed the only human wandering along the unseemingly wide avenue towards Capital Hill.

A little worriedly I looked towards the west. Evil, dark clouds were coming in fast while it seemed I had yet a long walk to Parliament. Luckily, for the half hour it took the clouds contented themselves with making threats.

Parliament House is a rather curious building on top of Capital Hill. Laid out as a square within the circle roads surrounding the hill, its front side is itself shaped like a large ceremonial piazza was carved out of the hill. Each of the four sides of the square served a different purposes. Up front was the grand entrance, left for the House of Representatives, right the Senate, and the back for the ministers. The centre was the base for a large metal spire that started out as a wire pyramid. Built in the eighties, it is all very modern and, a bit surprising for that decade, still rather shiny.

The best thing about it, though, is that you can just walk in. The only concession to this time and age is a security screening, but since at least today there weren’t any large crowds, this was over with quickly. Inside, the give you a free map, invite you to a free tour, and otherwise let you roam the halls. There was a café, too, where I went first to rest my feet after the one-and-a-half hour walk.

As I sipped my coffee, the rain started. Like yesterday it did so without mucking about, a proper downpour. That would have been fun out on the wide avenues with nowhere for shelter but some meagre trees.

I went to have a look at the House of Representatives and the Senate. Towards the back there was a hall showing paintings of various openings of parliament, from the first one, still back in Melbourne to more recent ones in the halls I had just been to.

Eventually, however, the question became how to get back. I considered bus and, God forbid, taxi. But as I stepped out, the rain had receded into a light drizzle and I decided to walk. I hadn’t gotten far before it stopped altogether. The air was cooler now and fresh. It lovely stroll, indeed, across Commonwealth Avenue bridge and back to the hotel.