Driving Down South
I
am getting ready for bed after a long day of work and traveling. The trip to Canberra wasn’t bad – about four
hours – and I am looking forward to exploring the city over the next two days.
When I last wrote I said I was heading down to Woolies to grab a sandwich, though I didn’t even make it that far. On my way out of Town Hall and through Town Hall Square (that massive underground complex that connects the Galleries, the QVB, the railway station, my office, and Woolies) I passed by a sushi place that was getting ready to close for the night. Town Hall Square exists to cater to the business people from the surrounding buildings during the day, so as the evening peak hour (as they call rush hour down here) kicks into full gear they try to unload the unused food from the day. I grabbed a great looking tray of sushi for a mere $4 and went straight to the train platforms to head to Central where my bus departed from.
With my quicker than expected dinner procurement, I arrived at Central by 5:15, but had a bit of a trek to the coach area from my train platform. When I got to the bus bays there were a few people waiting around. After a few minutes of mulling around I got on queue behind a few people and waited for loading to commence at 5:30. I happened to turn around at about 5:25 to find a few dozen people had fallen in behind me – I timed things quite well!
Right at 5:30 we started loading the coach and I grabbed the front left window seat as to also have a view out of the front windscreen on the drive south. The coach filled quickly, and by 5:40 they stopped loading people on our bus. We pulled away from Central about 15 minutes early from the scheduled 6:00 departure as another coach pulled up behind to continue loading people on the 6:00 service; it seems a lot of people commute between Sydney and Canberra on a weekly basis.
As soon as we had pulled out along Pitt toward Railway Square we were in the middle of traffic. All the way on Pitt down to the M5 we crawled, taking at least a half hour to make it the few kilometres to the motorway. The driver said that with Friday peak hour traffic, even with our early departure, we would probably be a bit late to Canberra. The traffic continued for a while on the M5 through the tunnel out of the City. The motorways in Australia aren’t very extensive and there are only two lanes in each direction, so the traffic is not so much caused by an exorbitant volume, but rather confined conditions.
Finally,
we broke free of the City and began our drive south at motorway pace. One thing (that I think I have mentioned
before on here) that I still can’t get over is the fact that there are bike
lanes on the motorways. That just seems
like a horrible, horrible idea on account of the proximity to large vehicles doing
110+ and the need to cross over traffic
lanes which are entering and exiting the road.
Along the journey we crossed the Great Dividing Range (the only reason I know that is because there was a sign). About two hours out from Canberra, we began encountering quite a bit of dust. It would come and go at intervals, and would get so thick across the road at times that it was impossible to see more than a few metres in front of the coach; the cars on the opposite side of the motorway appeared as glowing orbs as their headlights lit up the blowing red dust.
We arrived into Canberra, coming up the main drag of Northbourne Avenue and got to the bus terminal, Jolimont, about ten minutes behind schedule at 9:40. From the coach I saw Ashley, and as soon as we were stopped I was able to jump of, grab my bag from the hold under the bus, and by 9:45 we were off in Ashley’s car to Mt. Ainslie to look out over Canberra so I could get a better idea of where I was. Mt. Ainslie, the tallest peak in the ‘Australian Alps’ immediately surrounding the city lines up with the main axis of Canberra; from the lookout I got to see from the War Memorial (which sits at the base of the mountain) down the axis to Old and New Parliaments. Ashley pointed out the various boroughs (Ashley’s word which I found quite fitting) which lie in the valleys of the hills that make up the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
I suppose I should explain a bit about Canberra. Canberra was founded in 1913 to settle the ongoing dispute between Sydney and Melbourne of where to locate the Capital. Between the two cities (but closer to Sydney) in the middle of the bush Canberra was selected and a competition was launched to find a design by which to construct a national Capital from scratch (not unlike Washington, DC). An American (from Chicago) architect by the name of Burley Griffin was selected and construction commenced to turn the paddocks and bush into a Capital. The design is the epitome of the ‘Radiant Garden City Beautiful’ movement and is basically axial centres nestled between the hills and connected by boulevards that are more jungle than urban. At the centre of the scheme is a massive artificial lake named for the architect complete with a geyser that shoots hundreds of feet in the air. It is one of the largest and most wholly planned cities in the world, and is an interesting study in a true park city. The long and short of it is that it can be quite nice (if you are big on nature and all that jazz) but highly impractical given the great distances between areas and low population density.
But back to my arrival,,, After the mountain, we drove out to the borough that Ashley lives in (one of the newest boroughs, only twenty or so years old and still being developed) – Gungahlin north of the city centre and at the northern reaches of the ACT (effectively a city-state like DC). When we arrived, I met his brother and we all chatted for over two hours about Australian and American politics, sports, food, etc.
But, time for some sleep. Sounds like we are to have a busy day tomorrow!
When I last wrote I said I was heading down to Woolies to grab a sandwich, though I didn’t even make it that far. On my way out of Town Hall and through Town Hall Square (that massive underground complex that connects the Galleries, the QVB, the railway station, my office, and Woolies) I passed by a sushi place that was getting ready to close for the night. Town Hall Square exists to cater to the business people from the surrounding buildings during the day, so as the evening peak hour (as they call rush hour down here) kicks into full gear they try to unload the unused food from the day. I grabbed a great looking tray of sushi for a mere $4 and went straight to the train platforms to head to Central where my bus departed from.
With my quicker than expected dinner procurement, I arrived at Central by 5:15, but had a bit of a trek to the coach area from my train platform. When I got to the bus bays there were a few people waiting around. After a few minutes of mulling around I got on queue behind a few people and waited for loading to commence at 5:30. I happened to turn around at about 5:25 to find a few dozen people had fallen in behind me – I timed things quite well!
Right at 5:30 we started loading the coach and I grabbed the front left window seat as to also have a view out of the front windscreen on the drive south. The coach filled quickly, and by 5:40 they stopped loading people on our bus. We pulled away from Central about 15 minutes early from the scheduled 6:00 departure as another coach pulled up behind to continue loading people on the 6:00 service; it seems a lot of people commute between Sydney and Canberra on a weekly basis.
As soon as we had pulled out along Pitt toward Railway Square we were in the middle of traffic. All the way on Pitt down to the M5 we crawled, taking at least a half hour to make it the few kilometres to the motorway. The driver said that with Friday peak hour traffic, even with our early departure, we would probably be a bit late to Canberra. The traffic continued for a while on the M5 through the tunnel out of the City. The motorways in Australia aren’t very extensive and there are only two lanes in each direction, so the traffic is not so much caused by an exorbitant volume, but rather confined conditions.
 |
| Entering the M5 Tunnel at Friday peak hour. |
Along the journey we crossed the Great Dividing Range (the only reason I know that is because there was a sign). About two hours out from Canberra, we began encountering quite a bit of dust. It would come and go at intervals, and would get so thick across the road at times that it was impossible to see more than a few metres in front of the coach; the cars on the opposite side of the motorway appeared as glowing orbs as their headlights lit up the blowing red dust.
We arrived into Canberra, coming up the main drag of Northbourne Avenue and got to the bus terminal, Jolimont, about ten minutes behind schedule at 9:40. From the coach I saw Ashley, and as soon as we were stopped I was able to jump of, grab my bag from the hold under the bus, and by 9:45 we were off in Ashley’s car to Mt. Ainslie to look out over Canberra so I could get a better idea of where I was. Mt. Ainslie, the tallest peak in the ‘Australian Alps’ immediately surrounding the city lines up with the main axis of Canberra; from the lookout I got to see from the War Memorial (which sits at the base of the mountain) down the axis to Old and New Parliaments. Ashley pointed out the various boroughs (Ashley’s word which I found quite fitting) which lie in the valleys of the hills that make up the Australian Capital Territory (ACT).
I suppose I should explain a bit about Canberra. Canberra was founded in 1913 to settle the ongoing dispute between Sydney and Melbourne of where to locate the Capital. Between the two cities (but closer to Sydney) in the middle of the bush Canberra was selected and a competition was launched to find a design by which to construct a national Capital from scratch (not unlike Washington, DC). An American (from Chicago) architect by the name of Burley Griffin was selected and construction commenced to turn the paddocks and bush into a Capital. The design is the epitome of the ‘Radiant Garden City Beautiful’ movement and is basically axial centres nestled between the hills and connected by boulevards that are more jungle than urban. At the centre of the scheme is a massive artificial lake named for the architect complete with a geyser that shoots hundreds of feet in the air. It is one of the largest and most wholly planned cities in the world, and is an interesting study in a true park city. The long and short of it is that it can be quite nice (if you are big on nature and all that jazz) but highly impractical given the great distances between areas and low population density.
But back to my arrival,,, After the mountain, we drove out to the borough that Ashley lives in (one of the newest boroughs, only twenty or so years old and still being developed) – Gungahlin north of the city centre and at the northern reaches of the ACT (effectively a city-state like DC). When we arrived, I met his brother and we all chatted for over two hours about Australian and American politics, sports, food, etc.
But, time for some sleep. Sounds like we are to have a busy day tomorrow!
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