Canberra's Hidden Gems

Canberra has its fair share of great tourist attractions – the majestic Parliament House, the award-winning War Memorial, the edufunctional Questacon and the-how-is-this-place-still-open Cockington Green gardens. 

However, any Canberran worth their salt will tell you that the best parts of Canberra are the ones you have to look for, the ones that aren’t in your hoity-toity Lonely Planet guides; the parts of Canberra that tell a story that is less to do with grey buildings and roundabouts, these are real stories about love and loss and HOLY FUCK WAS THAT A PEACOCK? 

Yes, yes it was.  Canberra is home to its own flock of wild peacocks, that live on Dalrymple Street in Red Hill.  Rumour has it that a couple of go-getting Red Hill residents decided that their billion-dollar houses and sold-gold rocket cars weren’t enough, and wanted to raise a brood of peacocks.  No one is really sure why you’d want multiple peacocks wandering around your back yard; I don’t know how valuable they would be to sell, or if the Canberra market was ready to mung down on peacock meat or peacock eggs, or if there was much of a demand for big ol’ feathers, or if the Jonesmithtons in Yaralumla caught wind of it and said, “I hear Red Hill has its own peacocks.  I DEMAND WE GET SOME!  Can you please move the BMW to get to the Mercedes, as we need to upgrade it to the current model on our way, you know.”    

In any case, the RSPCA got wind of this fucking ridiculous plan and decided that Canberra isn’t the topsest place to raise tropical birds that get pissed off really easily, so the owners took them to a farm so they could chase tennis balls or do whatever peacocks do.  Unfortunately, the peacocks found their way back to their Red Hill house and continued peacocking around.  So they were moved again.  And again, they came back, but this time they completed a degree in International Relations at the ANU, joined the Public Service grad program, worked their way up to EL1, got picked up by KPMG Consultants and have subsequently moved into a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom place in Red Hill permanently. 

So the next time you are meandering around Red Hill, keep an eye out for Canberra’s own zoo.  You know, other than the other one.  

 Here, a peacock is seen scoffing at a 'common' car in Red Hill.