Neighborhood Walk - Kingston and Manuka

It turned out that the weather yesterday was as awesome as it was on Saturday, and I did manage to get my ass out of the house and go for a nice long walk. For something a little different, Tom and I drove over to the south side of town, and went for a walk around Kingston and Manuka.

The plan was to walk around the main street areas, but I cheaped out by parking at the Kingston Oval and walking a couple of extra blocks to avoid feeding a parking meter. I knew that there were a few spots there
because when we first moved to Canberra, we lived at the Oxley Court Apartments, which is directly across the street from the oval.
  We were only there for a month or so (until we could find a house to rent), and honestly, I've hardly been back anywhere near there since. There's a lot of upmarket shopping and cafes and boutiques and that sort of thing, which isn't exactly my scene. But I thought it might be nice for a change of scenery.




Just a couple of blocks up the road is the Kingston Hotel, but at 10 in the morning, there's not a lot of action, so we kept moving.


At that time of the day, a new bookstore was more my speed. But Tom wasn't impressed, and I definitely do NOT need to be bringing home more books, so I controlled myself, had a quick look at the books in the bins outside, then kept moving.


The gorgeous weather meant that plenty of people were out and about for a meal or a coffee.


Tom knows that coffee for me means a treat for him, so every time we went past a cafe, he'd start yelling "Coffee! Coffee! Coffeeeeeeee!" It's funny to see the looks on peoples' faces while they try to decide if they think it's cute, or if they're horrified at the sight of a caffeine-addicted three-year-old.


We skipped them all, and had some fresh-baked Italian bread and a Phoenix Organic Cola. The bread was free, given to me by a guy with a big box of bread as we walked by his apartment (no, I don't know why), and the cola was an impulse purchase when I went in to buy a newspaper (to get a free Sesame Street Christmas DVD for Tom). I'd read about Phoenix drinks a week or so ago, but I didn't know they sold them here, so when I saw them, I thought I'd give one a try. It was okay. Not as sweet as Coke. Not as bubbly. Not as acidic. Maybe more like R C Cola, but more lemony. Not bad, but I don't know if I'd go out of my way to buy more of the stuff.

We walked around for about three hours, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Then we went home and discovered that Karen and the boys hadn't finished their marathon cookie bake (end-of-year gifts for teachers and friends, plus more to share with the whole class). So whatever calories I walked off were quickly consumed in the form of warm-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies. I swear, she does this shit on purpose. :)

A Walk in Watson

After eating those potato chips (not my best moment, but a good sign that the meals I've been eating lately aren't entirely satisfying. Instead of eating the chips (which supplied fat, salt and sugar but not much else), I could've fried up some bacon and added some extra protein to my indulgent little snack. Oh well, the thing is, I ate them and there are still like, three or four more bags in the pantry (the boys devoured the two-thirds of the bag I didn't eat), and I'm not at all interested in eating any of them any time soon.

But the topic of this post is the walk Tom and I took to counter the scarfage of the chips. We took a little drive out of Gungahlin to North Canberra, and took a 90 minute stroll around Watson. As far as I know, Watson was developed in the 60s and 70s on what was then Canberra's northern edge. Back in the day, there was a drive-in there, but now all that's left of it is the sign (which I didn't get a picture of, because it's on the highway, and we didn't walk over there).

One of the nice things about walking around some of the older suburbs (well, older than the suburbs of Gungahlin) is that there are a lot more trees.


Most of the homes we saw were older two or three bedroom houses on nice, big lots. Some had unattached single garages, others had carports, and a few just had driveways and storage sheds.


Some of the houses were a bit hard to spot. We didn't see anything that would qualify as a suburban jungle, but there were some lots lots with extensive "landscaping". Which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. Big manicured lawns don't impress me.


This place caught my eye because I liked the stone walls. I'm not a big fan of yard-work in general, but I'd sure as hell rather put in the time to build something like that then spent it pushing a mower.


And I don't know what it looks like in winter, but with the flowers blooming, the yard looked nice.


Not my style, but I thought this house was a good example of what can be done with a little effort. There were lots of houses with this same basic design, but this one stood out because the owner painted it white (most are a light brown brick) and by doing up the yard (and I'm guessing here, but I don't think it would've cost a lot to do it).


Because it's close to the city (about 5 km or 3 miles from downtown), quite a few of the older homes are being bought up and refurbished. In the time we've lived in Canberra, the average house price in Watson has gone from just under $200k to $500k.


We saw at least a half a dozen houses that had been refurbished with corrugated sheet metal exteriors. But this one was the most extensive and the most striking.


So we explored a bit of Watson (more than planned, due to a wrong turn that turned an hour-long walk into a 90-minute walk), including parts of it that, after having lived in Canberra for over ten years, I've never seen before (or, if I did, I just drove through looking for someplace else, and didn't pay any attention). That's one of the nice things about walking. You can not only explore new places, but you see not-so-new places in an entirely different way.

Looking at Google Earth for ideas on which surburbs I'd like to walk in next, I'm starting to think that a hike to the summit of Mt. Majura (888 m/2,913 ft according to Wikipedia, a 900 to 1000 ft climb from a starting point in Watson or Hackett) might be on the cards.

A Walk in Palmerston

It was more wet weather again today, but I managed to get a walk in and only got a little bit wet. Maybe I need to buy a raincoat. I took Tom on a walk through Palmerston. But between the rain and the fact that a lot of the time we were going down walking/cycling paths with wooden fences on each side, I didn't take many pictures. Maybe I'll try it again another time and get more pics.

As you can see, there were blue skies and sunshine for some people, but not for me. Maybe the rain was following me. Oh well, the important thing is that, wet or not, I did it. According to Google, I walked 4.4 km (2.7 miles) in about an hour, and I got to see some parts of Palmerston I'd never seen before.

Today's meals were pretty boring--oatmeal for breakfast, soup for lunch, but dinner was great. Pinto (well, close enough) beans and rice. The hard part was the fact that I had to smell those beans all day while they were cooking. I must've tasted them 20 times. Just to make sure they were right. Twenty years ago if you'd told me I'd be so excited about eating beans and rice, I would've said you were an idiot. And it's not just me. Jack was going nuts for 'em, too. Last time I cooked 'em with a ham hock, but since Jordo didn't have any left, I just put in a big chunk of bacon, instead. I like 'em both ways, and next time I want to do them with sausage.

Including today's walk, that's ONE day in a row! :)