Sikamikanico Blogs

The following things happened during our visit to Canberra: Our train to Canberra was stuck at a place called Tarago, NSW, for over an hour due to an obstruction on the tracks (at one stage we were told we would have to get off the train and wait for a road coach). Upon arrival at the hotel, over an hour after check-in time, we had to wait for our room due to a system failure. The air-conditioning in the room was stuck on Arctic, and could not be repaired. The hotel had no spare rooms, despite it being midweek, out of season, and parliament not sitting, so we had to make do with a blow heater, which was full of dust and smelt funny. At least the paintings were good . We waited at a taxi rank in the busiest part of the Canberra CBD for nearly 45 minutes from 4pm. No taxis. It's not that there was a queue for cabs; there were simply no vehicles at all. Having missed our train because of this, and unable to arrange coach travel, we went to the airport. The good folk at Virgin Blue wer

I've never understood people who would disdain walking 500 meters to their local shops in favour of driving for 15 minutes to walk 500 meters across a featureless carpark to a shopping centre. DF and I walk everywhere, and what we can walk to nearby is the major factor in choosing where we live. (I also don't understand people who state that they have to drive because of poor public transport in their area - did they end up living there by accident?) Anyway that's why I'm so excited by Walk Score . You can rate the walkability of anywhere to live based on proximity to essential services, as well as those that aren't essential but nice to have nonetheless, like bars. The site isn't perfect - trees make a huge difference to how pleasant a place is to walk around, but trees are difficult to quantify in this sort of project. Of more concern is the grocery store purported to be 120 meters from us not actually exisiting, and a nearby school actually being a driving sc