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Published: November 6th 2006
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Opera House
From the Ferry R’n’R in Canberra Australia’s purpose-built capital city doesn’t have the greatest reputation as a tourist destination - it seems that a lot of people think it’s a bland, characterless sort of place. We can’t really comment on that, because we saw less of Canberra than anywhere else we’ve been to all year!....but we had a great time there.
Cameron (a snowboarding mate of Rod’s) kindly put us up and Stuey, his housemate, very, very kindly gave us his bed! Despite being a loud, lairy, drunken kind of Aussie bloke (words which I know will make him proud :o), Cam was the perfect host. He showed us a (very) few of Canberra’s sights and a lot of Canberra’s bars, cafes and restaurants. Given our travel fatigue, it was just what we needed…apart from the hangover after the first night. We also had our one and only Aussie BBQ in Canberra and had a lovely meal at Cam’s parents’ house.
After a morning out with Cam, Stuey and Chrissie Rod finally had something pretty positive to say about mountain-biking in Australia. He’s not so keen on the idea of motorbikes though…he had a go at riding pillion on the back
View of Canberra
In the words of Cam: "There you go, you've seen it now - lets go to the pub..." of Cameron’s motorbike and it left him a bit rattled - he says it’s the most extreme thing he’s done all year!
He’s also ended his surfing days (for now at least) by selling his surfboard to one of Cam’s mates.
All in all, a bloomin’ good time was had in Canberra, and I think that Cameron et al enjoyed having some poms around to ridicule. We were happy to oblige by moaning about the ridiculous heat, Australian drivers being consistently cr*p, Australian mayonnaise not being mayonnaise at all etc etc etc….
Mediocre Manly We’d booked a couple of nights in Manly, supposedly one of the best of Sydney’s north beach suburbs, so we drove straight there from Canberra, past various places named after British towns…
It had been 40 degrees in Manly just a few days before we got there, but it was now cold and grey. We’re not quite sure who’s been ‘bigging up’ Manly, but we didn’t think too much of the place…it was a bit scruffy and dull. In the absence of anything very exciting to do, we got organised and ready to return our hire car and walked for a
few hours along the coastal Manly Scenic Walkway.
So-so Sydney? We spent our last four nights in Australia in Sydney itself and we drove in to the city centre over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We were expecting some famous Sydney views, but we couldn’t really see anything from the Bridge so we drove on to our hostel dropped off the car and then walked around Sydney’s main sights.
The central business district looked like most modern cities in the US. We wandered around it craning our necks at the skyscrapers and then headed to Darling Harbour, which was pleasant in a new, uninspiring sort of way. Finally, we walked along the Harbour Bridge and got our first view of the Sydney Opera House. Now, this is likely to go down like a lead balloon, but we were a bit disappointed with the Opera House….actually, I used the words “seventies monstrosity” and I may have muttered something along the lines of Runcorn Bridge being more attractive than the Harbour Bridge. In retrospect that’s a bit strong, but for us Sydney Harbour and the whole city - while pleasant enough - just didn’t live up to the hype.
We tried to get to love it…we spent several hours looking at the Opera House from every conceivable angle (it looks best illuminated at night, and worst close up), and we did some exploring on foot and using the ferries. The exploring would have been considerably more relaxing if we weren’t constantly swatting flies away. Apparently the flies become ‘unbearable’ in summer….and this was bearable?!
Watson’s Bay was a pleasant oasis away from the city but just minutes away by ferry and Balmain had a nice feel to it. We took in a few semi-interesting galleries, discovered that Darlinghurst (a suburb close to the CBD) was a good spot for coffee and cake and enjoyed a walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens (and past the noisy fruit bats) to Mrs Macquarie’s Point for the famous views of the Harbour.
The Rocks area near Circular Quay is one of the few places where some of the original Sydney remains - the rest of the city is just too dominated by shiny, new buildings.
We got to Sydney just in time for the end of Good Food Month and pigged out at the Night Noodle Market in Hyde Park.
The park was lit by paper lanterns and it seemed that most of the city dropped by after work to enjoy some grub in the evening heat. There was a great atmosphere…it’s just the kind of thing we wish they’d do at home (except all of the chavs would get pie-eyed on special brew and it would rain).
The one place we didn’t make it to was Bondi. We were all set to go on our final day, but then the wind and rain set in. It seemed a bit daft to bother in such non-beach weather. If we ever make it back to Sydney we’ll definitely do Bondi….and I’ll commit some serious credit card abuse in all of those shops I was dragged past on this visit….but we’ll only do those things if we have time after visiting Melbourne again!
Bikers’ Corner By the time we arrived in Canberra, I was writing off Australian mountain biking. I had been fobbed off at Apollo Bay (despite it being named in the ‘Top 10’ day rides in Australia in a mountain bike magazine - bah!) and Eugene and I had discussed at great length the apparent lack of
In days gone by...
Apparently Cam did used to be quite athletic! interest or effort in developing or promoting the trails.
My last hope was Cam and Stuey’s local knowledge of the Canberra trails. Cam had even made a long overdue comeback to mountain biking in readiness for my visit! I was assured that I wouldn’t be disappointed and they weren’t wrong… Canberra has a very active mountain biking scene (it hosts the national 24 hour race and it’s a future World Champs venue).
We did a Sunday morning ride to a local hill and I enjoyed many sweet flowing singletrack trails following Stuey’s lead, with Cam trying to hold down his breakfast behind us and Chrissie making various excited noises that suggested she was enjoying her second ever mountain bike ride to the full!
If only the rest of the riding I sampled in Australia lived up to Canberra…
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Mike Hitchmough
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Budget RTW - Widnes Rocks!
Just got back from Runcorn Bridge. Bit smelly but i could see a monstrosity (Chemical works) and since it cost me a fiver in petrol i reckon it's a bit cheaper than your trip to Sydney. Off down the park later with my take-away and a can of "Spesh" to complete the experience. Later dudes!