Canberra

I’ve used these pages more than once to recount my progress as a fledgling mountain biker. After a lot of work this summer I’m finally reaching the stage where I can ride uphill for quite a long time and occasionally even reach the top. However, in the spirit of full disclosure, I have to explain that my first experience with a mountain bike came some (clears throat) years ago when I rented a bright yellow steed from Canberra Youth Hostel. (Where?) Canberra, Australia of course. Canberra. It’s the capital. Oh, go look it up.

Not that Canberra has mountains you understand, although it does have a couple of steep hills (the Youth Hostel is atop one of them) and one very long, drawn out slope leading to the Capitol building. This got longer and more drawn out when the gear cable snapped near the bottom and I had to complete the climb in the highest gear. The bike had 36 gears in all, which would have been around 33 more than I would have needed anyway but as it was, I had to content myself with 1 for the rest of the day.

Which all in all, wasn’t such a bad deal. With the exception of the aforementioned two hills and a slope, Canberra is more or less flat. Built over several decades through the mid twentieth century, (like Sydney Opera House, the design was chosen by competition) Canberra is by definition, a "planned" city and like most planned cities, it’s indescribably dull.

Oh, it’s pretty enough. And practical. It’s easy to get around, the roads are wide and uncrowded and the parks are really quite delightful. But that doesn’t prevent it from being dull. If you’re looking for a wild, crazy, drinking all day, partying all night kind of place, then Canberra isn’t it. In fact, despite spending an entire day cruising the streets on my bright yellow chick magnet, I never saw a single pub (which is my personal definition of hell). Now, as we all know, you can’t take a herd of politicians and lock them away from their families for weeks at a time without giving them a few places to undo their top buttons, but if said places are available to the hoi-polloi; then I didn’t come across them.

I did however, spend a lot of time going from public building to public building, like a good little tourist. The first port of call was the ANZAC memorial; a tribute to the fighting men and women of the Australia & New Zealand Auxiliary Corp whom the British used as cannon fodder during WWI. The building was impressive enough but paled in comparison to the view, which soared across the geometrical lines of the city to the parliament building some 4 miles away. Having a Y chromosome, I was also fascinated by the collection of antique aeroplanes.

The National Art Gallery next, free due to refurbishments, which was good because the vast majority of it was way over the head of an uncultured slob like me. Recently, I’ve been making an attempt to teach myself to draw again, and it’s slow going, but I think half the skill of these artists is to figure out how to get someone else to pay exhorbitant sums for the tripe they produce.

On then, to the parliament building; originally designed in 1913 as part of the aforementioned competition, but not completed until 1988, just a few years before I was there. What impressed me the most was the symbolism deliberately included in the design. For example, every color in the scheme, from the red gravel of the forecourt to the pale green of the seats represents the colors found in the Australian environment. Even better, the entire building is built into a hillside, with the roof sitting at around of the height of the original landscape. There is also a public walkway across the roof and these are both to show that the government does not sit ‘above’ the people, but that the people are above the government. A certain president whose party took a drubbing in the US elections last night could learn a lot from the Aussies.

The view from the roof was spectacular although I might have appreciated it more had I not made the poor choice of shorts and T-shirt, which were proving to be hopelessly inadequate for the early spring day. I must have been shivering because a little girl tugged on the leg of my shorts leg and asked me "Aren’t you cold?"

"Nah", I lied, "I’m British, I don’t feel cold." But the goosebumps may have given me away.

Back downstairs and off in search of some light refreshments. I didn’t find any, which considering Australia’s affection for the amber nectar, was astonishing. Locals have since told me that bars and nightclubs do exist in Canberra – one just has to know where to look. Sadly, I did not know where to look and after pushing the bike around the lake of a beautiful, but deserted park, (where for the record, I saw my first wild parakeets) I had to be content with wandering around a supermarket, purchasing groceries for that night’s dinner. Food in Australia is cheap when compared to Britain and as I was booked into the hostel for several nights, I came away with a rare haul.

Remember how I said the Youth Hostel was at the top of one of the few hills in Canberra? And remember how I said the gear cable had come loose, locking me into top gear for the day? Well here’s a tip kids, write this down.

If you have to ride to the top of a steep hill, on a bike which has only one, very high gear, and you have four heavy bags of groceries to carry up there with you…

Make sure you’ve at least had a couple of beers before you start.