Bart Bear's Blog

 

 After a few dull Canberra weekdays it is great to have a sunny weekend. The Oldies (and me, of course) usually make the most of the sunshine and go for a wander around the lakes and/or new suburbs.There are four big lakes in Canberra and a lot of smaller ones like the ones near our apartment. The main lake is Lake Burley Griffin, which effectively divides the city into north and south. There is a good flat walking track around it and it has lots of interesting buildings and monuments near it. This is the National Carillion, built for Canberra's 50th anniversary; with luck (or a bit of planning) you can have carillion music while you walk here. There are lots of picnic areas and rest stops around the lakes. The second photo is of one on the track around Yerrabi Pond. Of course, where you have lakes you have water birds like the swans near the carillion and the dozens of grebes at Yerrabi. Note how clear the water is. It is Autumn and the deciduous trees, mostly imported species, are busy changing colour and dropping leaves. That makes for some very colourful walks. Most Australian trees don't do this, some shed their outer layer of bark instead. The most interesting type of tree we have found is the Wollemi Pine, like this one planted near the National Library. This species dates back to dinosaur times and was thought to be extinct until a bushwalker found a stand of around 100 trees surviving in a remote section of Wollemi National Park in 1994. The hills around the city are mostly covered with gum trees of various types, and there are walking trails in many areas. The bottom two images are from a hill on the western edge of the city. All of the land from the bottom of the hill to the suburb in the distance will be full of houses soon. Canberra is growing at a rapid rate and this small bear finds it hard to see everything that is happening.