CANBERRA TIMES

Almost since its inception, Canberra owned the moniker ‘The City Without a Soul’. It was suburbia, a ‘factory town’ of public servants, with odd rules governing when you could drink beer, and liberal ones when it came to porn, marijuana and firecracker supermarkets.

Today, though, while we weren’t looking, Canberra has grown up. There are 450,000 people in the city, it’s surrounded by cold climate vineyards, and served by funky bars, cafes and restaurants with nouveau cuisine. The golf, as you may have read, is top class.

In the winter you might complement a trip with an ACT Brumbies or Canberra Raiders game at GIO Stadium, or take in Greater Western Sydney at Manuka Oval. Sydney Thunder play T20s at the same venue, and there is the odd one-day international.

The Kingston and Manuka regions are fine spots, as is Braddon just north of the CBD, with several top-quality restaurants, cafes and bars, with one called ‘Public’, on the corner of Flinders Way and Franklin Street, a local favourite.

There is fine fun to be had at the Southern Cross Yacht Club on a Sunday afternoon with music, wine and fish-and-chips by the banks of Lake Burley Griffin. ‘The Dock’, partowned by former ACT Brumbies players Ben Alexander and Scott Fardy, is one of several bars and restaurants along the popular Kingston Foreshore. In the north, the historic Old Canberra Inn at Lyneham does fine steaks, while at the Kingston Hotel, the famous ‘Kingo’, you can cook your own steak while nursing a glass of cold climate pinot.

You could also fly in a balloon. Canberra is surrounded by vineyards, all within 20 minutes of the city’s outer skirts. Getting around Canberra is so easy you could fall asleep. From Royal Canberra, for instance, on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, to Federal GC, on the lower reaches of Red Hill, it’s a 4.4-kilometre trip which might take seven minutes in the worst Canberra traffic.

Canberrans don’t have ‘traffic’ as it’s understood by those who live in our major state capitals, they perhaps think they do, but they don’t. If your commute is longer than 30 minutes in Canberra – or if anything, really, is over 30 minutes away – you’re packing lunch.

Consider the route from Royal Canberra or Federal, both roughly in the centre of the city, to Gold Creek Country Club in the north. The 25-minute trip traverses literally half the city. There is also a tram service in the north which further frees up roads so free of vehicles it’s almost eery.