The ACT Government does good

That is probably the most startling title for a blog I have ever done!  But there have been a few instances in the last 2 days of this happening.

The first followed from getting an official notice to tell the Dog Control people Tammy's chip number.  Not particularly good but when I explained she had been put to sleep I got a message of sympathy from them: not the usual image of Dog Control people.

Yesterday (Saturday 13 July) someone was out vacuuming up the fallen leaves in Allara Street at about 8am.  Well done - and as the trees are still full of leaves they have a job for a while!

One of the benefits of living in the ACT (and being officially ancient) is that we have got a Seniors Card which gives us free rides on public transport.  So we used this to go for a ride on the tram (aka light rail, to rekindle an argument I had about the Melbourne service many years ago).  Our destination was the "Farmer's Market" at EPIC about 6 stops down the line.

To use the service one has to swipe the My Way card before getting on the vehicle.  I have no idea how this is enforced but I'm sure it is.  (Apparently an inspector travels on the trams with a scanner which checks if the card has been scanned.)

 This was largely flawless, although Frances had trouble getting her card to work when we got to the destination.  I'm also unsure why you have to click off: in New York I think the turnstiles won't let you out until you swipe but here there are no turnstiles. Perhaps its to clear the computer system, to stop you being like a virtual Charlie?

On Saturdays the trams run every 15 minutes.  In peak hours it is every 6 minutes.   Here is ours coming in.

 A lot of people got off.

Not so many got on.  Perhaps no-one wants to go to Gungahlin?  I thought the appearance of the tram was good: perhaps they'll get tacky after a few years but they start out pretty spiffy.

 The white design is part of a series of art works at each stop.  So far it isn't tagged!

 Here is the driver setting off.  Somehow it all seemed very high tech- possibly because it is very quiet and smooth unlike the noisy diesels on Canberra roads.

 If I was searching for a flaw it would be the design of the emergency door release where it seems rather complicated, for a process that I would have thought by its nature had to be simple.

 It was interesting that our stop was called "Racecourse/EPIC".  It is a fair trek (according to Google Earth, 300m) from the stop to the gates of EPIC so I wondered if the racecourse people had more say in the sighting of the stop.  But is is probably at least that far to the entrance to the place where you lose your money.

 Here is the scene at the Markets.

 I really don't like this place.  It seems dark, crowded and noisy and very few of the people seem to be local farmers: taking an example I noticed someone had come from Gilgandra - a nice town, but 464 km away!  Its hard to see how they complete for price with the Fyshwick Markets and the quality doesn't seem brilliant.

Here is a Google Earth clip of our route.  We started by heading down the main road: that took us 1.1 km to get to the markets (about 500m to the site of the Book Fair, when that is the business).  We came back around the top of the trotting track which was only 700m.

 On the ride back we were pleased to see how full the tram was.  We noticed a lot of the punters seemed to be of Asian appearance, probably reflecting people from other countries being more used to taking public transport?  Overall a very pleasant experience and another tick for the Government

I'll finish with some parrot snaps.  This flock of Australian King Parrots were in Commonwealth Park on our morning walk.  A flock was in just this spot when we were last here a month ago, so there must be some nice seed falling from the trees.

In the afternoon I went to Hall on the NW corner of the ACT to try to tick a Blue-faced Honeyeater which had been seen there.  No luck, but I did score at least two Scaly-breasted Lorikeets which are - or at least used to be - very unusual in the ACT.  These were feeding in a flowering eucalypt but one moved into an exposed position briefly to get photographed.

 There were also some Rainbow Lorikeets present.

 Here is a comparison of the two species.