Frommer's Australia from $50 a Day 13th Edition - To Parent Directory

13
Canberra
by Marc Llewellyn
If you mention you’re heading to
Canberra (pronounced Can-bra, with
very open vowels), most Australians
will raise an eyebrow and say, “Why
bother?” Even many Canberrans will
admit that it’s a great place to live but
they wouldn’t want to visit.
So what is it about Canberra that
draws so much lackluster comment?
Simply put, Australians aren’t used to
having things so nice and ordered. In
many ways, Canberra is like Washington,
D.C., or any town that was a
planned community from the start.
Some see its virtues as bland: The roads
are wide and in good order, the buildings
are modern, and the suburbs are
pleasant and leafy. Canberra is also the
seat of government and the home of
thousands of civil servants—enough to
make almost any freethinking, individualist
Aussie shudder.
But to me, Canberra’s differences are
the very things that make it special.
The streets aren’t clogged with traffic,
and there are plenty of opportunities
for safe biking—try that in almost any
other city center, and you’ll be dusting
the sides of cars and pushed onto the
sidewalks in no time. There are plenty
of open spaces, parklands, and monuments,
and there is an awful lot to see
and do—from museum and gallery
hopping to ballooning with a champagne
glass in your hand, to boating on
Lake Burley Griffin. You can pack a lot
into a few days’ visit.
Canberra was born after the Commonwealth
of Australia was created in
1901. Melbourne and Sydney, even
then jockeying for preeminence, each
put in their bid to become the federal
capital. In the end, Australian leaders
decided to follow the example of their
U.S. counterparts by creating a federal
district; in 1908 they chose an undeveloped
area between the two cities.
Designing the new capital fell to
Chicago landscape architect Walter
Burley Griffin, a contemporary of
Frank Lloyd Wright. The city he
mapped out was christened Canberra
(a local Aboriginal word meaning
“meeting place”), and by 1927, the first
meeting of parliament took place. The
business of government was underway.
Originally the land that became
Canberra was predominantly grass
plains. Over the years millions of trees
have been planted in and around the
city—lending it the nickname “the
bush capital.” Unfortunately, massive
bushfires in January 2003 destroyed
much of the surrounding forest and
more than 500 homes in the suburbs.
1 Orientation
ARRIVING
BY PLANE Qantas (& 13 13 13 in Australia; www.qantas.com.au) runs frequent
daily services to Canberra. Virgin Blue (& 13 67 89; www.virginblue.com.
au) also connects Canberra to Sydney, and offers discount Web fares.