Mid Autumn Calm Today was another superb mid-autumn day here in the Bush Capital. The morning chill soon lifted to a warm, windless, blue sky day. It was one of those days when the air is so calm it feels as if the world has stopped turning for a few hours. Well I guess much of the human activity has actually stopped, which I suppose is another reason why the atmosphere is breathing a quiet sigh of relief.
The pedalling goal this afternoon was to ride to another of my most favourite hill tops near Canberra; Mt Stromlo. Although I was thwarted by a road closure a few hundred metres from the summit, it was very enjoyable half-day ride.
From central Canberra, Mt Stromlo can be cycled to/from almost totally on traffic free bike paths. There’s a few hundred metres of shared road riding just before the turnoff to the Mt Stromlo summit road, and the summit road itself is used by some light motor traffic. Otherwise the entire ride is on cycle ways. Today I saw only one car on the summit road. Mt Stromlo is a very popular training and recreational ride route with local cyclists, so I saw quite a few other cyclists.
MTBing Mecca The Mt Stromlo area is also home to Mt Stromlo Forest Park which is a national mecca for mountain bikers. The mountain biking facilities at Mt Stromlo were another very successful post 2003 bushfire reconstruction project. Before the fire, the Stromlo pine forest (plantation) had a number of ad hoc MTBing and running trails. Now it has an extensive network of professionally built trails and other infrastructure for cycling, including a criterion track for road riders.
The Observatory Mt Stromlo Observatory is an historic site near Canberra. The buildings here were the first to be built when the The Australian Capital Territory was proclaimed over one hundred years ago. Back then of course, Mt Stromlo was an isolated and almost free of light pollution in the clear, sub-alpine skies. For almost one hundred years the telescopes of the observatory contributed greatly to our understanding of the universe. As Canberra grew, so did light pollution, and Australia put more resource and emphasis on radio astronomy in other sites. Nevertheless Mt Stromlo continued its good work, and was also used for astronomical education. In 2003 this all came to a sudden end, when the massive 2003 bushfire mentioned on a previous journal entry, destroyed much of the observatory and ended its role as a visual observatory. Nowadays it has astronomical functions continue, but with more emphasis on other types of auto technology such as near space laser ranging, and high tech engineering workshops.
Unfortunately I couldn’t get photos of the observatory itself today. I will look for photos taken on previous rides, or return to take pics when the summit road reopens.
The rest of this afternoon’s ride in pics:
Canberra’s street trees are putting on their mid autumn light show.
Typical scene along the bike path near the Woden town centre. This is about 14 km from the ride start in the Canberra CBD. The first part of the ride was along Lake Burley Griffin which was featured in previous journal entries.
Looking toward the summit of Mt Stromlo. The national mountain biking facility aka Mt Stromlo Forest Park is on the side of Mt Stromlo in the centre of the image.
The final few hundred metres between the end of the bike way, and the turnoff to Mt Stromlo are narrow, shared road way. Care needed here, but the traffic flow is usually light.
