h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Nice work on the Guide Entry, by the way- captured the bundle of paradoxes that is Canberra perfectly! You seem to have concentrated largely on Civic tho, so, if you don't mind, I'll just ramble on and try to fill in this rather tiny gap called 'Belconnen' towards the North? =P

--BELCONNEN--
'Belconnen' is the name given to an area encompassing numerous suburbs, usually from the top of O'Connor Ridge (a gigantic hill-ridge thing that runs from Black Mountain out to the North East) all the way out to Dunlop in the west, and as far as Giralang to the North. It's centered around the actual 'suburb' of Belconnen, which consists of a moderately sized mall and a lot of shops or various sorts.

The Researcher would like to point out that, despite appearances, this Mall can actually be an interesting place, especially for the conniseur of coffee- at the time of writing, Gloria Jean's, on it's lowest level, is one of THE best Coffee shops I've encountered. The Food Court is also good on a rainy afternoon, especially when couples with the movie theater.

There's also a rather fat lake situated near aforementioned Belconnen Mall, that being Lake Ginninderra. It's a slimy, sludgy, carp-infest duck pond which has grown beyond hope, and any sane native will advise you NOT to go swimming anywhere near the bloody thing. The black Swans and Ducks can be interesting to those with excess time or little kids, however, as is the legendary 'Snake Park', situated on it's Northern Shore.

Closer to the Mall, still near the Lake, is the 'Skate Park'- a concrete structure designed with little more than rollerblading, skatboarding and stunt biking in mind. A jovial place, especially when someone stacks their oft-abused mode of transportation, but this Researcher advises you to keep your chortling to a low level- numerous black eyes have been dispensed with impunity upon high-decibel laughter.

There's also a neat bus interchange, which makes getting around town much easier. Regulars of the bus interchange are statistically more likely to contract cancer, due to the copious amounts of nicotine smoke in the air. We'd also advise you to stay the heck out of the Interchange after about 9:30-10:00pm, as thugs often roam it's concrete walkways, spitting chewing gum on the ground willy-nilly, among other things.

The outlying suburbs in the Belconnen region are, generally, of little interest. Most are sparse residential areas, each suburb with it's own 'convenience stores', and contain little else. They are all conveniently linked by bike paths, which we're pretty darn proud of- Canberra's Bike paths must be some of the best in the world.

Belconnen residents frequently have arguments with Tugeeranongites about which suburb is superior. Tuggeranong, to the Southm is much larger and newer, but reportedly suffers from a fairly large violence problem. Belconnen is, to my mind, fairly sedate, but could be said to be suffering a bit of aging, in places. At least when compared to Tuggeranong.

However, as a loyal Northerner, I must simply state for the record, that Belconnen is a better place than Tuggeranong, and I've always thought 'Tuggeranong' was a verb, not a place. =P

EOF
-Andrew White
Researcher 139818

Ack. Nothing to do with Youth in there. Sorry 'bout the mis-subject. =)

lol. Couldn't have put it better myself. One thing about Gloria Jeans though? It's owned by MacDonalds. In my opinion, the best coffee is at the Italian Bite Trattoria in the food court (near Dymocks). They even give you free pastries!

Winnie