The smaller Canberra guide

Use this map to find the stuff mentioned:

http://maps.google.com.au/maps/ms?msid=215638201421509021428.0004a05256a412b9c2bd2&msa=0&ll=-35.278564,149.129756&spn=0.001629,0.003262

/www.allhomes.com.au/
good for housing

also
www.canberra.gumtree.com.au

food:
choko bai jo in North Lyneham is the famer's outlet, good and not too expensive

farmer's market saturday mornings at EPIC is great but not always cheap, depending on what you buy. really good potatoes.

Fyshwick market south of parliament is open thurs-sat, good for buying a mountain of veg, meat. good when cooking for the masses. also the deli has rather awesome cheeses and there's an asian supermarket with frozen dumplings. there's a coles in manuka on the way north for anything you miss.
woolworths in dickson: local supermarket. there's a supabarn in civic as well as an Aldi's for cheap bulk stuff. The Supabarn is apparently owned by a Greek family, so has lots of good cheeses. They are also the best place to go if you have allergies or are looking for more unusual foods/health foods.

Furniture:

Fyshwick has a cute antiques place called Down Memory Lane. If you're looking for vinatge clothing, try April's Caravan. the store roams around a lot (in a caravan) but is currently in Bailey's Arcade in the city.
The Green Shed, otherwise known as the tip shop, has stores in Mitchell and Mugga Lane. Everything you've ever seen and taken from someone's hard rubbish is for sale here. Outdoor furniture, indoor, pianos, kitchen stuff, books, everything. They also have a small shop in Civic which sells their nicer antique items.
Ikea is scheduled to open at the airport in October/Nov 2015, so watch this space. There is also a Costco at the airport.

places to eat

Belgian beef cafe in kingston: good food, good beer, not cheap

asian noodle house in civic: institution of cheap friday night dinners

dickson dumpling house: $15, good stuff.

CBD dumpling house: part of the chain with Dickson dumpling and in my opinion even better; get the eggplant hotpot and the big leek dumplings. 

I heart Pho - good cheap Pho. There's also a Spudbar next door which is great.

italian & sons:  best fancy-schmancy italian food. expensive, best visited with family who are paying. Jamie's Italian is also nice and cheaper, good for date nights.

Bharat international supermarket: an indian supermarket/cafe with curries under $10 and a great indian tv channel playing overhead. good when poor and tired of cooking, but out in Belconnen.

debacle – good for big group events, long benches and cheap pizza

BRODBURGER: most amazing burgers ever at Glassworks across the lake. humungous, awesome, in high demand on friday and saturday nights. gourmet cheese.

in civic: Gus's was one of the first outdoor dining spots in canberra (back when they were afraid of flies from the sheep stations, i'm not kidding) and a buch of trendy restaurants have grown up at the north end of the canberra centre.

Burmese Curry Place (actual name) Cnr Northbourne and City Walk, $8 massive serves. Brilliant

we avoid canberra centre but usually end up there in search of incense from the oxfam shop - incense is hard to find here! JBHiFi also lures us back there. In general I consider canberra centre better than belconnonen mall, if only because it's smaller and a bit less drowning in carparks. Also has an ALDI.

at uni:
street theatre - good sandwiches
food co-op: lunch served Tue-Thurs, lots for $4, all veg. Nice communal hippy vibe
zamberos - $10 giant burritos. good stuff.

Local shops worth going to
O'Connor: has TuDo Vietnamese restaurant, a big pub and the Polish Club which hosts lots of local music shows
Lyneham: has The Front, lots of indie music there on weeknights, has Tilley's, Canberra's first lesbian bar and now a yuppie brunch place, and a nice secondhand bookstore.
Lonsdale St in Braddon: Has Lonsdale St Roasters (Canberra's best coffee), lots of trendy op shops and similar in Lonsdale St Trader's and lots of bike shops. Currently very fashionable. Good for sunday breakfast, but don't got after 11 - you won't find a table. 
There's also a bunch of food trucks now which are fun.

Curtin shops on the southside has Beyond Q, an awesome basement secondhand bookstore definitely worth a visit, and the southside farmer's outlet
Manuka shops is a giant paradise of brunch cafes
Kingston has great mussles and beer at Belgian Beer Cafe, not far from Fyshwick

Kingston by the lake has lovely new trendy waterfront area, including a Rum Bar that does expensive but lovely drinks, not far from Brodburger.

Swimming
Dickson pool is outdoors, lovely with grass areas but crowded
Kambah pools is a fair drive away to the south. It's basically just a river but it's really nice for an evening swim in summer.
Belconnen, Gungahlin and Tuggernong have good indoor heated pools. Avoid Civic pool, it's old and gross.

on the topic of exercise:
there's a hot yoga place (literally temperature hot) in civic called Soul Power Yoga which people rave about. the ANU gym has an odd hotchpotch of stuff but is very cheap, even if you're not a student. No pool though.
I just ride my bike, which leads me to:

bike paths
I use the bike path running down the mid to west side of the inner north hexagon (O'Connor), it's good and goes thru parks rather than by the road. people do cycle down northbourne avenue but it looks scary! in general, northbourne is the flattest part of the suburbs which end where the hills start, so I avoid the paths that circle the suburbs due to hill madness. Going around or across the lake is lovely.


Live music:
The Canberra Musician's 'Club runs a lot of local gigs and is worth looking up on facebook. Key venues include:
The Front, Lyneham (small, weeknight gigs, including touring artists)
The Bowlo/RUC, Turner (near O'Connor shops, rock type gigs)
The Merry Muse, Turner (The Bowlo when it's a folky venue)
The Polish Club, O'Connor (another rock gig once it's back in action, currently under repair)
The Phoenix (open mics, occasional gigs. Kinda grungy, also hosts slam poetry nights)
Smith's Alternative, Civic (currently in receivership but scheduled to reopen soon, folky stuff)
ANU Bar (rock, hosts bigger touring bands)
UC Zierholtz (also hosts touring bands e.g. Josh Pyke)

I recommend checking the Culturazi gig guide http://www.culturazi.com/?page_id=12404 and subscribing to their weekly updates to see what's what. Enjoy!

For music shops, have a look at Better Music in Woden and Davis Wheeler in Fyshwick.

The ultimate guide to hippy/yuppie living in Melbourne's inner north

I wrote this guide for a friend moving to Melbourne from Canberra. It favours the inner north as that’s my favourite part, but includes a few marks all over the city as well. Please treat as more of an introduction than a definitive guide since it only mentions places i actually know. Enjoy!

I have created a google map with a marker for almost all of these things. it may take some time to find them all as it's a bit crowded but you'll the idea in terms of good locations and things you can visit on the way to other stuff.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=215638201421509021428.00049cabc00b5f81774d2&z=11

first thing: food shopping
1. Mediterranean wholesaler - they have a whole aisle just for pasta, it is a miracle. great for bulk buying ($10 for 5kg pasta, 24 tin tomato slabs at 69c a tin) so try to access a car or trolley for this one

2. Preston market - good fun for fresh produce, there's some great butchers and so forth

3. Coburg shops (cnr Sydney and Bell) - 3 supermarkets, a fresh food market, some great fruit & veg shops on the main st and some excellent greek/mediterranean shops (especially the one at the door to the market)

5. Ceres. just off Nicholson St, Ceres is a market/community gardens/hippy education/petting zoo place with food markets and a fancy organic cafe. nice for a day trip or morning tea on a saturday

6. Collingwood children's farm + abbotsford convent: hosts expensive fancy farmer's markets some weekends, also lots of goats to pat. the convent has become a hub for local artists and makes a nice place to visit. this is down by the yarra river in the bush, a nice escape from the city without actually leaving the city. walking distance from the epping train line.

Place to eat out:
1. A1 Middle Eastern Food on Sydney Rd near Anstey station. awesome pizza type things. same stuff available at:

2. Alalamy's, out the back of the coburg shops. these places are both supercheap and great to feed guests - you can ask them to slice up a bunch into bite size pieces.

3. Noodle Kingdom! the place that handmakes the noodles! near preston market this place is worth the occasional trek but not on a saturday or friday as the line stretches for miles.

4. Vietnam Noodle house, 251 Swanston st in the city. our place of choice for cheap food before a concert

5. (why did i do numbering if I wasn't going to stick with it?) Matsumoto japanese, costs a bit but awesome food. lygon st near brunswick rd.

6. tokyo gardens restaurant, Latrobe st in the city another good japanese place

7. Gopal's: cheap hippy cafe on swanston st, good when needing lots of food cheap.

ok this list kind of morphed into a list of places in which food can be found, so let's go with that:

5. Lygon St for Italian: near the Nova cinema, plenty of cute little places. combined with the cinema this makes a nice evening out. Also a great bookstore called readings opp. the nova. Ellie says Denini's is good, also Trotter's is a good brekkie cafe

6. Lonsdale St in the city is the Greek precinct

also chinatown is around there which can be fun.

7. Brunswick St - just an awesome place as you may know already. Vege bar, although loud, is a great place for hosting any vego friends you may have. really good food either way. A lot of cool shops here including polyester records and books, the nova cafe (no relation to cinema), mario's italian, brunswick books. the block between johnson st and alexander pde is best.

8. Smith St - one block east of brunswick st and a bit grungier - avoid at night. cool 2nd hand clothes though.

9. Chapel St - the fancy shopping district frequented by Toorak people and tourists, but quite fun to hang out there. the Soda Rock Diner is a cool old style place for a burger and fries.

10. Clifton hill: a cute local shops near clifton hill station (epping line) that includes our old chiropracter Maria Liosis. Westgarth shops are just north of here and include westgarth cinema, a beautiful old place.

7. the state library: right in the city, this is a lovely place to study or work in peace. just rent a locker for your bag and head in.

8. melb central: has lots of shops and aircon, not a bad place for xmas shopping and the like. also has famous amos cookies which are great.

9. Federation square: an odd but nice place, often the site of small festivals and sport screenings. can be fun.

10. Degraves Place off flinders: a nice place to meet people for coffee, there's an awesome soup place just past flinder's lane.

11. Victoria St Richmond: the vietnamese area, lots of good food and the Ikea is up the end of the st. 

Venues: 

9. The Tote - Cnr Johnson and Wellington in Collingwood, the tote often has good locals bands on so we wind up over there a fair bit

10. bar open - a favourite haunt of our bar-going friends though i don't know so much about it.

11. Festival Hall - hosts many rock bands but it's falling apart. go if must.

12. Palais - nice old style theatre, keep an eye on their gigs as they have lots of good people there

13. The Astor - a vintage cinema down chapel st, recently bought up by a nearby school to save it from ruin. often shows really cool double features both old and new. take your dinner break in the nearby Alma park which has the most epic treehouse ever.

14. the comfy chair: on the south end of sydney rd, it was popular when we were young enough to need somewhere that doesn't ID. cute but grungy.


Ok some other things to note:
1. Chocolate shops: haighs is awesome. other places that are awesome: San Churro, on brunswick st, Koko Black in the city.

2. Saver's: a ginourmous op shop on sydney rd, you can't go better for dressups, jackets, random bowls and plates, and really random furniture. it's a lot of fun and you'll find good stuff. also the street festival is midmarch, enjoy! keep an eye out for awesome hats and hippy clothes in general.

3. Green’s Furniture Thornbury: good value 2^nd hand furniture store on High St, lots of nice stuff

Vinnie’s: great op shops, the bigger ones have furniture sections. Check http://www.vinnies.org.au/centres-national for multiple locations.

4. on the nature of buses: they generally go east to west, connecting up the train lines. the 510 on moreland rd goes quite a long way in either direction, useful for reaching the next train line over and so on. useful for getting to preston market, noodle kingdom, the tote, smith st and clifton hill or westgarth. In peak times you're sometimes better off sticking to trains to avoid the traffic.

5. doctor of choice: The Northside clinic contains both of Ellie's childhood doctors who are awesome and many others as well http://www.northsideclinic.net.au/ . not always easy to get in there, but for any serious health issues they're the best to go to if you're needing a chat. It can be tricky to find a doc with spots available, so i recommend putting yourself on their books right now, as well as finding someone local to you. better done now then when you actually need them.

6. cycling: if you do cycle in melbourne, try to stick to backstreets or bike paths. the best paths usually run near creeks or train lines. avoid trams like the plague. 

oh and one more category that i've kinda covered already: 
Good day trips

1. Great ocean Rd - about 2 hours to the west past geelong, this starts at Tourquay and goes for ages. beautiful beaches and cliffs, definitely requires a car though. Airey's inlet is my favourite town for holidays. eat scones at the lighthouse cafe, swim at fairhaven beach and sleep. plenty of great beaches in the area for a day visit.

2. puffing billy - a cute oldstyle train that runs into the mountains and winds up in the cute town of Gembrook. beautiful rainforest in all weather but it's outdoor so dress well! catch the belgrave train to the end and change.

3. williamstown beach - it's a beach. there's icecream and a camping ground. good escape on a hot day.

4. also elwood and brighton beaches to the east.

5. The Fitzroy pool - iconic in the local neighbourhood for being saved in the early 90s from apartment developers. Great place. take a picnic.

6. Studley Park - just across from Collingwood children's farm, the park has a beautiful boathouse, some bush walks and a BBQ area by the river. nice bush picnic spots. Fairfield boathouse, further north, has similar stuff.

7. royal botanical gardens are right near your work and they're great. good devonshire tea in the restaurant by the lake or you can do a picnic.

Hope this deluge of stuff helps make Melbourne more fun for anyone lucky enough to be moving there!