I’m heading to Melbourne to see an old friend. Just a short trip, so a tiny bag, enabling me to fulfil a life’s dream: I’m going to cycle to the airport.
Marie saw me off.
A strange dream, you might think. It’s just a small thing, but I love the idea of being able to do something so big — fly to Melbourne — without having to get in the car.
Also I don’t own a car, so it’ll save me at least $50 on Uber rides.
There aren’t many cities you could do this, and there certainly aren’t many capital cities. But Canberra’s a funny little place. A lot of people don’t even realise it’s the capital — they assume that’s Sydney.
At the top of our street you hit Anzac Parade. That’s the Australian War Memorial at the left/north, then you look down the parade and over Old Parliament House to Parliament House at the right/south.
A tiny panorama doesn’t really do it justice. It’s better on street view.
At the bottom of the parade you do a left, turn in past ASIO (our FBI), and you hit Lake Burley Griffin.
Over the lake there is the Parliamentary Triangle. It’s a delightful part of the world; whenever we’re there we can’t quite believe that it’s where we live. It’s like a scene from the original Star Trek, one of those episodes where they land on some utopian world and everyone is young and beautiful and they’re all exercising with a big smile and they’re rolling hoops and wearing lilac leotards and then later you realise actually it’s really sinister because actually everyone’s a lizard and they eat the old people but on the surface it’s an idyllic paradise.
That’s what it feels like when you cycle round Lake Burley Griffin.
Over the way there you’ve got the National Gallery of Australia, the High Court of Australia, Questacon (the science museum), and the National Library of Australia. We work in the library sometimes, it’s lovely and the Wi-Fi is epic.
So then you ride along the lake for a bit…
…and you get to the airport. By now my hands and toes are a touch cold — it’s about 7°C — but not too bad.
The bike gets parked.
And I’m in one of the loveliest airports you’ve ever been in.
The flight was on time (actually we’re running early), I’m in 5A on a lovely QantasLink A220 which feels like it’s been recently renovated. Seating is 2+3 so there’s loads of room.
Whenever we fly Qantas we wonder what Americans would think of Australian domestic flights. No offence, America, but I’ve done a cross-country economy flight on one of your main carriers. We do it better.
Oh and this is cool! I’ll publish this from the plane, which has Wi-Fi. Better hurry up, we’re coming in to land.
