My One Complaint (so far)

Dear City of Perth,

After living in Perth for 14 months, I have one complaint. I thank you for the investment you have put into superb cycle paths. As a recent transplant from an un-bicycling friendly city, I find the high quality of separate, paved cycle paths to be a welcome change.

As a resident of the CBD and an employee of Curtin, the cycle paths around the Swan River make it an easy and enjoyable cycling commute. However, as I cannot ride on water, I must ride over one of the bridges.

 

And you seem proud of your bridges as evidenced by the plaques.

The Narrows and Causeway Bridges, are in general, deplorable for pedestrians. Particularly the Causeway Bridge. The path is too narrow, with a single railing guarding against the city traffic and a tall cement barrier all too close for brushing elbows with. With gusty afternoon sea breezes and hungry, tired cyclists racing home after work (or maybe just me), it's surprising that I haven't mowed down a pedestrian with my bike.

 And while all the other cycle paths are neatly paved, the bridge is made up of uneven cement tiles that lead to my irrational fear of getting a tire stuck in the rut. Recently, you've even tried to advise cyclists of the uneven surface. And the poor roller bladers might as well take off their skates and walk across.

The eastern side of the Narrows isn't much better.

You clearly know how to build proper pedestrian cycle paths on bridges, as the western side of the Narrows and the Windham Bridges are ideal. Which I would ride over if they happened to lead where I needed to go.

Unfortunately, it is the Causeway Bridge that I, and many others, ride over twice daily.

Please smooth out the connections between north and south. Other than that, great city!

A concerned resident,
Uneasy Rider

Something more boring than baseball

Who knew that there was a sport more slow paced than America's pastime?

Well there is and it's cricket.

This weekend I have the privilege of going to the cricket. Yes, it's "the" cricket. Crazy Australians and their need to use articles for sporting games.

I walk or ride by the WACA (cricket ground) every day but have thus far not been inside.

Now I have tried to be culturally competent and accepting and have tried to watch a few cricket matches on TV. But I just couldn't figure it out on my own despite our modified soccer cricket played at soccer camp.

What did I learn? First of all, there are different kinds of cricket matches. Tests, one day interantional (which is what I went to), and 20/20. Test matches can last 5 days! One day internationals do have a break for lunch. Yes, that is correct. And 20/20 is supposed to be the high paced fast action version of cricket. The verdict is still out on that one. I shall report when I witness that in person.


Australia vs. South Africa. Some international, commonwealth rivalry. Seemed like a big deal to me.

I could attempt to explain the rules to you. But I would probably leave you more confused than when you started. Instead, I will summarize the key points I learned.

1. To get a "home run" the ball just has to roll over the boundary (which is possible without even hitting it if it sompletely misses the batter and "catcher". That is 4 runs.
2. A "wicket" is equivalent to an out, even if it doesn't actually hit the wicket the three pronged structure thing.
3. Not too much happens. Enough not-much-happens happens that players in the outfield can sign autographs between bowls.

The problem with cricket is that it's played in the summer, matches can last all day, and the cheap seats have no shade. That leads to some intense attempts at sun protection and an entertaining display of hats.

In general, the crowds try to keep it as interesting as possible, cheering at each bowl, chanting, and even trying the wave. They even brought out free popsicles. It's a nice outing, regardless of what's happening on the field. But if you're bored, no worries, cricket on a nice day is just an excuse to lay down and sun bathe in public.

Is it AFL footy season yet?

Planning a City

Ok, I promise this is the last blog about Canberra. You may get the impression that I've been there for weeks, but it just happens to be a bloggable city. And I have a few more pictures I want to share.

Canberra is a planned city. Mostly because nothing was there before they decided to put the capital of the country there, when Melbourne and Sydney were fighting to be the capital.

To steal from Wikipedia...

"Canberra is a planned city and the inner-city area was originally designed by Walter Burley Griffin, a major 20th-century American architect (interesting that an American designed the capital of Australia? I think not) Within the central area of the city near Lake Burley Griffin, major roads follow a wheel-and-spoke pattern rather than a grid. Griffin's proposal had an abundance of geometric patterns, including concentric hexagonal and octagonal streets emanating from several radii." (Traveler beware: this circular pattern can get you a bit disorinted)

"Lake Burley Griffin was deliberately designed so that the orientation of the components was related to various topographical landmarks in Canberra. The lakes stretch from east to west and divided the city in two; a land axis perpendicular to the central basin stretches from Capital Hill—the eventual location of the new Parliament House on a mound on the southern side"

 

"—north northeast across the central basin to the northern banks along Anzac Parade to the Australian War Memorial. This was designed so that looking from Capital Hill, the War Memorial stood directly at the foot of Mount Ainslie. "

"At the southwestern end of the land axis was Bimberi Peak, the highest mountain in the ACT, approximately 52 km (32 mi) south west of Canberra."

The straight edge of the circular segment that formed the central basin of Lake Burley Griffin was perpendicular to the land axis and designated the water axis, and it extended northwest towards Black Mountain. "

^{Black mountain and its Telestra Tower}

^{Lake Burley Griffin provides a beautiful  riverfront walking and cycling route around the two bridges.}

 ^{You can walk up Mt Ainslie for a beautiful view of the land axis to the parliament house, and you may even get to watch a hot air balloon drift by.}

Also good for some bird watching

Plus, the city has some pretty good names for streets.

Pink Sunglasses Spy on Embassy Drive

I don't think I've ever paid much attention to embassies. I can't actually remember ever consciously noticing one. So when our non-double-decker-red-tour van drove by a smattering of them, I knew that was something I was going to take a walk to check out.

Turns out, walking to see the embassies is not on the Canberra tourist list of things to do and that's probably intentional. Though they do mention an Embassy Drive, key word being DRIVE. There weren't any sidewalks leading directly there. And once I found the little embassy haven, there were a)still no side walks b) a total of three people, including me and c)random police cars parked in driveways in front of the security cameras. Clearly, we live in a cautious world, with everyone on high alert. But I wasn't going to let that stop me from my around the world photo snapping tour. They were all so cute displaying their national character. Besides, how intimidating does a tall, white girl with a camera, pink sunglasses, and a back pack look?

The green and yellow of the Brazilian Embassy

Sharp, clean lines of the Finnish Embassy

A little quaint French Embassy

The Chinese Embassy was quite unmistakable. Apparently when they had built it, the Australians tried to bug it, so they build a whole new section where they built it using only laborers hand-picked direct from China.

The Embassy of Egypt even had a sphinx statue (obviously not in this picture)

The Embassy of Indonesian had a tiki feel

Turns out they weren't even all embassies. The representation from other countries in the British Commonwealth actually are High Commissions.

Of course there was the British High Commission.

My old neighbors the Canadians, who even put maple leaves in their cement.

The plantation-esque South African High Commission

The New Zealand Commission with tin cows in front

And don't forget the High Commissions from Papua New Guinea and Singapore

And in front of Parliament was the Aboriginal Embassy, representing the fight for land rights for the orinigal owners of the land.

There are over 80 embassies and commissions, and they're even building more. Here is the future site of the Russian Embassy.

And yes, there was an United States of America Embassy. The biggest, and best of them all in its white trimmed colonial brick, opened in 1943.

Look real close and you may even be able to see the American flag

I thought about stopping in for tea with my American Passport, but the police car, security cameras and gate persuaded me that I'd rather get gelato back in the city. After all, it was a warm day and I had done a lot of walking.