TheRamblingWombat Canberra

St John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church

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The silver onion dome of St John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church, generally gleaming in the beautiful Canberra sun, stands out and is seen by thousands each day as the travel along Canberra Avenue between the City and Fyshwick and Queanbeyan. Not many take that extra step, and I didn’t for fifteen years, of detouring the hundred or so metres necessary off Canberra Avenue to visit this rather beautiful church, in the style of 14th century churches found in the Pskov and Novgorod regions of north-west of Russia. Continue reading “St John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church” →

TheRamblingWombat Canberra

Calthorpes’ House – Pop In While The Family Is Out

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Calthorpes’ House was built in 1927.

The house, its outhouses and its furnishings, household appliances, photos and the gardens remain virtually unchanged from the 1920s and thus provide the visitor with a genuine insight into the housing style and taste of middle to upper class Australians in the late 1920s. Continue reading “Calthorpes’ House – Pop In While The Family Is Out” →

TheRamblingWombat Canberra

Red Hill Lookout – Why so called?

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Red Hill ridge separates the central Canberra valley from the Woden Valley to the south and affords excellent views of both Canberra and Woden (the city’s first ‘new town’). Most likely named after the red soil in the area (or perhaps the autumn tree colours), the summit is 734 metres high. Like Mount Ainslie and Black Mountain Reserve there are numerous walking/cycling tracks on Red Hill. Continue reading “Red Hill Lookout – Why so called?” →

TheRamblingWombat Canberra

Scrivener Dam and Lake Burley Griffin

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Readers familiar with Canberra, and readers of others of my Canberra reviews, will know that the ‘centre piece’ (or is it the pièce de résistance?) of the planned city of Canberra is a large artificial lake named after the man engaged to design a custom built capital city befitting of the then newly created Commonwealth of Australia (1901). Continue reading “Scrivener Dam and Lake Burley Griffin” →

TheRamblingWombat Canberra

National Arboretum (And Bonsai Collection) – Where Are The Trees?

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Let me state upfront – if you are coming here to see banks of mature trees as you might find in other arboretums then you will be sorely disappointed. Apart from a bank of mature Himalayan cedars and Cork oaks all the other trees are less than (most significantly less than) 10 years old. Why is this so? You ask. Ok, you don’t but I am going to tell you anyway! Continue reading “National Arboretum (And Bonsai Collection) – Where Are The Trees?” →