Suburb #66 Scullin

So today I visited suburb number 66 with my mum. I chose Scullin due to the party at the local shops event on today and in fact right now!

Scullin is named after former prime minister James Scullin who was lucky enough to be sworn into government two days before the wall street crash of 1929 which basically marked the start of the great depression. James was a good catholic boy who didn't drink or smoke and married a dressmaker.

Streets here are apparently named after aviators (missed that entirely...) - though note that Long Place is ridiculously short...

Scullin is quite a small suburb of Belconnen. It has some amazing tall and beautiful gum trees, but a bit of a dry and dusty feel about it as a result.

But if you look closely enough you can find some pretty little bits of  greenery...

And as usual Belco didn't disappoint with the individualistic letterbox design :)

I swear this horse is too freaky for a kids playground though....

Finally it was off to the shops where they appear to have several supermarkets...

And the good old suburban Chinese restaurant - of course called Sue's...

And plane stuff...

And today they also had a party :) [*waves* to Tara aka 'Miss Belconnen' - sorry I didn't stop too say hello but you looked busy]. Ukuleles, free hair spray and op shopping - not bad Scullin. Well done :)

But just finally WTF? did I miss something with this advertising campaign...

Suburb #65 O'Malley

So I haven't gone to a new suburb in ages! Sorry folks. Life has been a bit complicated of late and a lack of internet at home hasn't helped. But it was such a glorious day in Canberra today that I decided to check out O'Malley.

O'Malley is named after King O'Malley - the person not the pub. O'Malley was famous for many things including helping to establish the Commonwealth bank, helping to select the site of the national capital and taking the 'u' out of the Australian Labor Party. He also implemented a ban on alcohol in the ACT in 1911 *shakes head*.

The streets here are named with Aboriginal words.

I will be honest. I found O'Malley to be quite a strange place - particularly as there were almost no signs of human life.

First stop was the reserve at the top of the suburb...this was very dry and admittedly not the most picturesque Canberran hill I have stood on. Nevertheless, I met a nice family of kangaroos and this was certainly bush capital atmosphere...

Back down the hill and O'Malley is basically embassy after embassy. Big big big buildings of questionable attractiveness....mmmm money certainly does not buy taste.

It was all a little bit odd... including the garden decorations...

And they seem to do things very BIG in O'Malley - for example you don't just adopt a tree, you adopt a landscape...

Even the street lights seemed confused...

Nevertheless, there was a nice view....

And a nice pond...although seemingly lined with animal carcasses for some reason...

And it was great to be out and about adventuring again....