Feel the power: Suburb # 25 Curtin - Strang(e)ways here we come...

It has been hard to find suburban time recently between human adventures, kitchen dramas and work, but it was worth the wait for suburb number #25 Curtin. I took so many photos and ate so much here, that this suburb is going to require a post on my food blog as well.

I was inspired to come here after listening to staff at the Archives talk about John Curtin - Australia's former Prime Minister after whom the suburb is named. A Labor wartime PM who significantly expanded social services and social security. He died in office (actually at the lodge) just six weeks before the end of the war in the Pacific.

Curtin's streets are named after state premiers (some of the best names so far). Why didn't I know we had a premier (SA) called Henry Bull Templar Strangways...I would vote for someone with that name. But I have started something I couldn't finish there...

As per usual practice, we headed to the local shops fist off - the epicentre of any Canberra suburb (well except for Aranda...)...

Unusually though we stayed here for so long we almost got a parking fine...after eating a lot...we got lost in the absolutely amazing Beyond Q bookshop. How have I been in Canberra for 13 years and not known that this existed?

For the uninitiated, this place is down a rather steep staircase effectively under the Curtin shops and it is full of literary treasures...I couldn't believe that there was a whole 2 rows of books that were just biographies, a whole bookshelf of books on Canberra and also some other unexpected categories of books...

I just love that there are lots of little spots to sit and read....

And that the shop is littered with little bits of Canberra history. Did you know there was a Canberra beer in 1980?

OK so EVENTUALLY we left the bookshop that felt like a suburb in its own right....perhaps we shouldn't have though as I almost got run over by a tractor that literally drove up behind me on the sidewalk, which was certainly unexpected...

We then chose a random street to park in (Nelson Pl) and started wandering and I think we were lucky enough to discover some the prettiest parts of the suburb.

This so wins the prettiest apparently completely unnecessary roundabout award so far...

I could live here (well if it wasn't on the southside and was walking distance from civic :p). The design here is very clever and the results are beautiful. There are lots of 'green belts' between the houses here, but unlike other places in Canberra the houses actually front on to these. As a result they have become beautiful gardens/community spaces with play equipment for kids and lots of character. There are also some gorgeous houses here and blue trees...