I Swore I’d Never Move to Canberra. Until I Did.

Posted on 11 April, 2016

Raised eyebrows. Scowling faces. Generic throat sounds that all come out sounding like “blurgh”.

These are the reactions I received from family and friends when I said I was making the move from Adelaide to Canberra. Or from Radelaide boasting its Mad March festivals and sunny beaches to the home of the emperor penguins boasting Floriade and the place Malcolm gets his morning coffee.

Two years ago my partner, fresh off the university conveyor belt and ready to kickstart his engineering career was getting nowhere in the Adelaide job market. I’ll never forget the day he rang to say “Hey honey, I got a job! The only thing is it’s in Canberra”. He may as well have said “Hey honey, I got a job! The only thing is I have to cut off my right ball and give it to the dog as a chew toy”.

Naturally I progressed through the five stages of grief.

Denial: “Well of course this is a joke. November Fool’s is a thing right?”

Anger: “Why me God, why!”

Bargaining: “You know that thing in the bedroom we talked about? We’ll do it three times a week if you stay!”

Following those, I proceeded to set up camp in the fourth stage, Depression: “I’m going to be the 3rd, 7th and 15th wheel at EVERY event now. Have pretty much become Bridget Jones. Will be found half-eaten by Alsatians”.

Having recently started a new job in Adelaide and dealing with bile rising in my throat every time I thought of Canberra I decided to stay behind and give the long distance relationship thing a go. Sadly, to me that was the preferred option to having an address featuring the letters A, C, or T.

The first year went by smoothly although I had to field numerous inquiries as to the welfare of my now Bush Capital residing boyfriend. “So does he like HAVE friends?” “What do you DO exactly in Canberra on the weekends?” “Well hey it’s not all that BAD, I hear there’s a bar that serves free tacos!” (From my ever-the-optimist friend).

But after 14 months, my job wasn’t fulfilling me and Adelaide was starting to look a little sepia around the edges. I was faced with two options: get a new job and hope my boyfriend would be fired and have to come home or suck up my pride, square my shoulders and move to Canberra to be with him.

So naturally I chose option 3, took a volunteer position two continents away and moved to Mongolia.

My 2015 was spent learning Mongolian, riding horses, camping in yurts and freezing my bits off in a -30 degrees winter. I chose to spend my days largely misunderstood (“no Australian, not American”), wearing three pairs of pants and watching re runs of Mongolia’s Got Talent in an effort to avoid going to Canberra. If there was an award for the most deliberate and strenuous attempt NOT become a Canberran I would have won hands down.

Despite my attempts to keep it at bay, the end of my assignment rolled around and my other half was no closer to leaving the city of terrible street parking and overtly chirpy bird noises. In fact, he had gone and gotten himself promoted and given a pay rise. The nerve.

So a decision had to be made. Look into another obscure country to run off to (Dominican Republic anyone?), stay in Adelaide and continue long distance indefinitely or make the move to Canberra.

So what did I choose you ask?

I sit writing this in a Braddon coffee shop sipping an annoyingly good chai tea after I just ducked down from my cosy Inner North apartment. The sun is shining (despite all protestations from everyone to the contrary), I’m wearing shorts and I’ve got a lunch date tomorrow with a new friend.

I’ve been here for two weeks and nothing pains me more to say that I am now eating my words and they are surprisingly delicious. And I actually like the bird noises. Give me three months though and I’m sure I can come up with a list of things wrong with this place….

Photography by Martin Ollman