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Published: June 13th 2009
As promised a leisure and industry guide to Mount G.
Firstly leisure - you do not come to the G for good swimming centres. Many locals have maligned the fact that there is a lack of good quality lane or lap swimming in winter time when the Olympic Park 50 metre pool is closed. Ths is the case in many provincial towns of Australia from from what I can gather, and unless you are a hardy soule that doe not mind surfing with sharks or the 12C coastal water temperatures then alternative leisure must be embraced!
The Squashbrook leisure center on Commercial Street West, about 1.5km out of the city centre, responded to my emails prior to em coming here saying 'Yes, lap swimming is available at our centre'. Closer examination and a visit yielded that maybe it was a 25 square metre pool, not 25m LONG pool where people go to loll about with their painful appendages, and occasionally do aquarobics classes. They hold classes and have a fully equipped gym, but I would say it is fairly standard given some city gym facilities I am familiar with. Glenfield Leisure centre gym seems not so bad afterall!
There are other gyms in town, such as Active8 and Tonic, which seem fairly run of the mill. I can speak more though of the Tonic Pool, also known as the 'Y' (as in YMCA) or 'Swimskool' (it seems that Mt G locals cannot spell correctly?). Indeed it is a tonic for all closet swimmers, or camply open swimmers that cannot subsist without some water therapy! It is heated to 30C, has 4 lanes, and is available to the public for limited opening hours. These are Monday to Friday from 6 until 9am, and Saturday from 7 until 8.45am, or the swimskool staff kick you gently out........time keeping is very casual overall here in the country, and a bit of laxity is always nice when it is 7am on a cool 7C saturday morning, raining, overcast, and you want to have a swim 4km away by bike! The fee is $5/ swim, or concession of 11 swims for $50AUD. Memberships can be purchased, about $200 for 3 months unlimited. If you live close by and love early morning starts then this would be perfect!
I have decided not to spend my entire leisure allowance and time in a salt
Jogging and cycling territory
Head up to Centennial Tower around the Valley crater rim, by foot or off road it by bike!water chlorinated pool whilst here, and cap my swims to an achievable 2x weekly. This is leaving heaps of opportunity for other pursuits like jogging, hiking, cycling etc around the Lake district, the opporunities being prolific! The rural surrounds of the G are set out like a grid, so calculating an hour ride or jog is fairly easy. From where I am near Bunnings, I can access the crater trails in 15 minutes jogging, which are soft volcanic soiled paths the run the primter of the 3 craters here. Two are full of water, the Blue Lake (most renound) and the Valley lake. The leg of mutton lake between these two is dry, and evidently they all go through phases of drought and lush, fertile fullness. You can reach Centennial Tower on one of these trails, and this is a great way to spend an early morning jog for the sunrise which is about 7.20am at the moment. Someone has told me that Lake Eyre, once dry, is now wet and so the landscape has changed from what it is renound as, DRY! But that is a million miles from here, and evidently all these phenomena have a link to
the queensland floods recently. Well I never.
But I do endorse this belief, as I popped down to see the Cave Garden before writing this blog in the centre of Mt G, behind the Town Hall built 127 year ago. This hole was developed over many years from forest to public pools to local flora to what it is now, a deep hole with running waterfall and a few old RTD cans thrown in for good measure. Apart from being slightly spoiled, it shows this to be a city of holes and underground caverns...amazing! Word is that you have to be careful drilling too deep for you will come across one on your property...highly likely!
Now for industry. Mt G is built (pun) on limestone and caves, and a huge forestry industry. My next door neighboor has ana ptly names forestry type name...Bruce. Most drive utes, traybacks, or big trucks of stone, cement, logs, and various things in between. These hardy types will like give you one of 3 greetings if met in the main street or near the mill, or on the road......
1. Raised finger (the acknowledgement wave)
2. Raised eyebrows, often accompanied with 'ello love'
The lollie industry
Yum Yum....get your Gambier Rock here! 3. Raised chin, in a quick fashion (like the Kiwi 'cheer bro' variety)
There are several mills in the G, about 4 I think. The exude putrid smoke that at times can smell addictive and other times nauseating. I wonder how bad this may be, but perhaps I am scaremongering? Most towns between here and Adelaide (where we exit the green triangle) are related to forestry, a bit like the plantations of the central Nth island of NZ with long rolling straight roads and pine forests either side. The smell is similar whereever you go! But pray for a northerly wind and I do not wake up to it in my flat, hoorah when that happens.
Any way I will let the pics do the talking now....
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