New Digs

G'day, mates.

I moved into new digs two weeks ago. I am now within walking distance of the ANU in an older, established area of Canberra, called Campbell, not far from the Australian War memorial and the Anzac Parade. The War Memorial looks down the Parade directly at the old and new Parliament buildings in the distance across Lake Burney Griffin.

My landlady is a young 81 and still plays a regular game of golf every Tuesday. She spends much time in the garden, however, and has already offered me several different types of herbs including curry leaf. She is lively, talkative, thoughtful, listens and shares her opinions well. We have sat down to dinner together a couple of times already and she pours the wine. I barbied up some chicken last night for her.

Her last tenant needed to move on unexpectedly, and she worried about getting an older, professional person to take her place. Rarely does the flat come up for rent because the tenants generally remain a long time. A month ago, I realized that David would soon be returning and I didn't have a place to live. A feeling kept nudging me to get on the net and look. Begrudgingly I sat down and did a rather thorough search of the districts all over Canberra focusing on units that I thought I might afford, between $280 and $340 a week. After about 3/4 hour this one popped up. I kept coming back to it and wondering whether it really looked as good as the pictures suggested. I ended up taking the bus into Civic the next day and walked over from the ANU. The landlady was home and within minutes we both felt comfortable with each other. Fortunately, no one else was on the list in front of me.

The back yard is covered with the shade of a large palm and what appears to be a type of oak. The shade will help considerably during the summer to make the very pleasant backyard livable in the dry summer heat of Canberra. A wooden table with chairs covered by a large umbrella will be a great way to enjoy the summer sun. The next door neighbors have a swimming pool.

Her son designed and built the flat. The L-shape holds a bedroom, study, a kitchen, large living area, and a bath. A real brick arch separates the living area from the bedroom. The colors are warm, almost Mediterranean; large sliding glass window/doors let in the outdoor light, smells and sounds.

There is plenty of shelf space for books and papers. And plenty of closet space for clothes and other odds and ends. She has already stocked the kitchen with kitchenware, plates and silverware. I just need to bring the food and the odds and ends needed to make this a comfortable home for the next three years.

The buses leave a block away every ½ hour on the weekdays starting at 7 AM and drop me off at the Civic interchange. It's a neighborhood bus and wanders through several of the small suburbs, but arrives in about 20 minutes.

The bus system in Canberra is remarkable. You can get just about anywhere without waiting very long. Each district has its own main interchange and sends out local and distance buses. Typically it takes about ½ hour to each interchange.

Bus tickets are about $4 per ride unless you have a concession. You're either a senior, a student, a school child, disabled, or you just bought a ten-tripper. A ten tripper is a set of 10 trips for free. You can get monthly cards too. So rarely does anyone pay full price. The student concession card puts you on the bus for $1.26 a ride, which is defined as any place you can go in the entire system within 1 ½ hours. If you try to ride after that you get charged, but within that limit you can go from bus to bus to bus as many times as you want. The card readers are often broken; apparently there is a big to-do about replacing them. I have ridden many times without paying. They say about ¼ of all riders are riding for free because of the broken card readers. I suppose that will all be fixed soon.

My friend Tricia and I spent an afternoon wandering the city and ended up on the viewing deck of the Telstra tower, which sits on the top of Black Mountain and overlooks the city. The views are spectacular. That tower is quite a bit bigger than meets the eye when viewing it from the city below.  Here is what you see from the top.

From the bottom of the tower.

Views of the City all the way around the tower.

Come visit me and I'll show you the sights.

There are more pictures here.

Cheers.