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Arts and entertainment
The National Museum of Australia established in 2001 records Australia's social history and is one of Canberra's more architecturally daring buildings. Canberra is home to many national monuments and institutions such as the Australian War Memorial, the National Gallery of Australia, the National Portrait Gallery, the National Library, the National Archives, the Australian Academy of Science, the National Film and Sound Archive and the National Museum. Many Commonwealth government buildings in Canberra are open to the public, including Parliament House, the High Court and the Royal Australian Mint.
The Australian War Memorial Lake Burley Griffin is the site of the Captain James Cook Memorial and the National Carillon. Other sites of interest include the Black Mountain Tower, the Australian National Botanic Gardens, the National Zoo and Aquarium, the National Dinosaur Museum and Questacon – the National Science and Technology Centre.
A copy of every book published in Australia is required by law to be held by the National Library of Australia. The Canberra Museum and Gallery in the city is a repository of local history and art, housing a permanent collection and visiting exhibitions. Several historic homes are open to the public: Lanyon and Tuggeranong Homesteads in the Tuggeranong Valley, Mugga-Mugga in Symonston, and Blundells' Cottage in Parkes all display the lifestyle of the early European settlers. Calthorpes' House in Red Hill is a well preserved example of a 1920s house from Canberra's very early days. Canberra has many venues for live music and theatre: the Canberra Theatre and Playhouse which hosts many major concerts and productions; and Llewellyn Hall (within the ANU School of Music), a world-class concert hall are two of the most notable. The Street Theatre is a venue with less mainstream offerings. The Albert Hall was the city's first performing arts venue, opened in 1928. It was the original performance venue for theatre groups such as the Canberra Repertory Society. Stonefest at the University of Canberra was a large two-day music festival. There are numerous bars and nightclubs which also offer live entertainment, particularly concentrated in the areas of Dickson, Kingston and the city. Most town centres have facilities for a community theatre and a cinema, and they all have a library. Popular cultural events include the National Folk Festival, the Royal Canberra Show, the Summernats car festival, Enlighten festival, the National Multicultural Festival in February and the Celebrate Canberra festival held over 10 days in March in conjunction with Canberra Day.
Canberra–Nara park with Kasuga stone lanterns framed by the gate Canberra maintains sister-city relationships with both Nara, Japan and Beijing, China. Canberra has friendship-city relationships with both Dili, East Timor and Hangzhou, China. City-to-city relationships encourage communities and special interest groups both locally and abroad to engage in a wide range of exchange activities. The Canberra Nara Candle Festival held annually in spring, is a community celebration of the Canberra Nara Sister City relationship. The festival is held in Canberra Nara Park on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin. Transport
Canberra Ford Falcon Taxicab at the Australian War Memorial The automobile is by far the dominant form of transport in Canberra. The city is laid out so that arterial roads connecting inhabited clusters run through undeveloped areas of open land or forest, which results in a low population density; this also means that the idle land is available for the development of future transport corridors if necessary without the need to build tunnels or acquire developed residential land. In contrast, other capital cities in Australia have substantially less green space. Canberra's districts are generally connected by parkways—limited access dual carriageway roads with speed limits generally set at a maximum of 100 km/h (62 mph). An example is the Tuggeranong Parkway which links Canberra's CBD and Tuggeranong, and bypasses Weston Creek. In most districts, discrete residential suburbs are bounded by main arterial roads with only a few residential linking in, to deter non-local traffic from cutting through areas of housing. In an effort to improve road safety, traffic cameras were first introduced to Canberra by the Carnell Government in 1999. The traffic cameras installed in Canberra include fixed red-light and speed cameras and point-to-point speed cameras; together they bring in revenue of approximately $11 million per year in fines.
ACTION Ansair bodied Renault PR100.2 used in Canberra ACTION, the government-operated bus service, provides public transport throughout the city. Deane's Transit Group provides bus services between Canberra and nearby areas of New South Wales through their Transborder Express (Murrumbateman and Yass) and Deane's Buslines (Queanbeyan) brands. In the 2011 census, 6.7% of the journeys to work involved public transport; with 6.5% walking or cycling to work. There are two local taxi companies. Aerial Capital Group enjoyed monopoly status until the arrival of Cabxpress in 2007.
Canberra Railway Station An interstate NSW Train Link railway service connects Canberra to Sydney. Canberra's railway station is in the inner south suburb of Kingston. Between 1920 and 1922 the train line crossed the Molonglo River and ran as far north as the city centre, although the line was closed following major flooding and was never rebuilt, while plans for a line to Yass were abandoned. A 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge construction railway was built in 1923 between the Yarralumla brickworks and the provisional Parliament House; it was later extended to Civic, but the whole line was closed in May 1927. Train services to Melbourne are provided by a NSW Train Link bus service which connects Sydney and Melbourne in Yass, about one hour drive from Canberra. Plans to establish a high-speed rail service between Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney, have not been implemented, as the various proposals have been deemed economically unviable. The original plans for Canberra included proposals for railed transport within the city, however none eventuated. The phase 2 report of the most recent proposal, the High Speed Rail Study, was published by the Department of Infrastructure and Transport on 11 April 2013. A railway connecting Canberra to Jervis Bay was also planned but never constructed. Canberra is about three hours by road from Sydney on the Federal Highway (National Highway 23), which connects it with the Hume Highway (National Highway 31) near Goulburn, and seven hours by road from Melbourne on the Barton Highway (National Highway 25), which joins the Hume Highway at Yass. It is a two-hour drive on the Monaro Highway (National Highway 23) to the ski fields of the Snowy Mountains and the Kosciuszko National Park. Batemans Bay, a popular holiday spot on the New South Wales coast, is also two hours away via the Kings Highway.
International Airport terminal Canberra International Airport provides direct domestic services to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Perth, with connections to other domestic centres. There are direct daily flights to Albury and Newcastle in New South Wales. No regular commercial international flights operate from the airport. Canberra Airport was designated by the Australian Government Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development as a restricted use international airport. Until 2003 the civilian airport shared runways with RAAF Base Fairbairn. In June, the Air Force base was decommissioned and from that time the airport was fully under civilian control. Canberra has one of the highest rates of active travel of all Australian major cities, with 7.1 per cent of commuters walking or cycling to work in 2011. An ACT Government survey conducted in late 2010 found that Canberrans walk an average of 26 minutes each day. According to The Canberra Times in March 2014, Canberra's cyclists are involved in an average of four reported collisions every week. The newspaper also reported that Canberra is home to 87,000 cyclists, having the highest cycling participation rate in Australia; and, with higher popularity, bike injury rates in 2014 were twice the national average.
TASKS I. Read the text. Find the words that match the definitions below: 1) a wide road with trees or tall buildings on both sides, or a wide country path or road with trees on both sides; 2) the increase of something in size, number, or importance; 3) the feeling you have when you are embarrassed; 4) the day or year that is 100 years after a particular event, esp. an important one; the 100th anniversary; 5) a structure or building that is built to honour a special person or event; 6) a place where things are stored; 7) public shows, performances, or other ways of enjoying yourself; 8) a town or city that shares planned activities and visits with a similar town in another country; 9) a long passage under or through the earth, esp. one made for vehicles; 10) an amount of money that has to be paid as a punishment for not obeying a rule or law; 11) the movement of vehicles or people along roads, or the movement of aircraft, trains, or ships along a route; 12) an area outside a city but near it and consisting mainly of homes, sometimes also having stores and small businesses; 13) a public road, especially an important road that joins cities or towns together; 14) a place where aircraft regularly take off and land, with buildings for passengers and flight management; 15) a long specially prepared hard surface like a road on which aircraft land and take off. Date: 2016-03-03; view: 864
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