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“How many 69-year-old dictionary writing, alphabetical Canberra suburb cyclists do you know?” It’s quite the question Dr Bernadette Hince posed after she arrived in Yarralumla this week, the last suburb on her A-to-Z tour of Canberra by bike. For more than a decade, Dr Hince has been slowly working through the list of Canberra’s gazetted suburbs and travelling to them from her home on her old Peugeot bike. “I’ve lived in Canberra most of my life. There’s so many suburbs I don’t even know where they are. Then I thought maybe I could do it alphabetically. And then I thought, well maybe I could do it on my bike,” she said. It comes as no surprise alphabetical order was the system of choice for Dr Hince, who is a visiting fellow at the Australian National Dictionary Centre and the author of The Antarctic Dictionary: A Complete Guide to Antarctic English. While the alphabet is now a recurring theme in Dr Hince’s house and mind, it wasn’t always the way. “My Dad had a second-hand bookshop in Melbourne. … I must have been about 12 once when he went out to lunch and I was there and I thought, I’ll rearrange the books,” she said. “So I started on the Australian fiction and I did about the top two shelves. … And he looked at them and I’d gone big-big-big, smaller-smaller-smaller, and he said, ‘Oh, very good. We usually do it alphabetically.'” Dr Hince, who only learned to ride a bicycle aged 27, said she was astonished sometimes she could stay on a bike: “Isn’t it a wonderful thing, riding a bike?” But riding to each suburb in Canberra has its challenges, not least of which is the ever expanding list of destinations. “At some stage, and I think it was in about 2012, I drew up a list of suburbs and a red line underneath, because when I started there were 99 suburbs, and it’s actually not completely easy to tell what a suburb is either. Some people regard Manuka as a suburb and other people don’t; I do, because it’s got shops, therefore it’s a suburb,” Dr Hince said. “The list had grown from 99 to about 118, 120. Then a couple of suburbs got un-suburbed; they got absorbed in another suburb and their name disappeared.” There were times when Dr Hince thought she would never finish, including a stint living away from Canberra. “I’d done a lot of suburbs, then I moved and nothing happened for 18 months. Then I came back to Canberra and I thought, ‘I could actually finish this project, if I stay alive long enough’,” Dr Hince said. After each ride, Dr Hince wrote a diary entry to record the trip; she hopes to collate and publish them. But it’s still hard to pick a favourite. “I think I’ve got a special affection for Amaroo, and that was a long time ago, because that was when I realised that there’d be something interesting no matter what,” she said. “If you get on your bike and you go somewhere, you’re going to see something interesting. And it also made me think, it would be lovely to live here.” Next Sunday, all Canberrans will be encouraged to join Pedal Power’s annual Big Canberra Bike Ride, a year on from the COVID-19 pandemic which prompted a bike sales boom. “Canberrans enjoy a wide range of riding disciplines, this is the one event each year which can bring us all together as one community,” Pedal Power chief executive Ian Ross said. “After such a discouraging and disconnected year last year, we are looking forward to reinvigorating riders and building a sense of community and fun.” The bike ride – which includes four different circuits ranging from 6 kilometres to 120 kilometres, covering all skill levels – will be held on Sunday, March 21, with a hub offering food and entertainment on King Edward Terrace. Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
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“How many 69-year-old dictionary writing, alphabetical Canberra suburb cyclists do you know?”
It’s quite the question Dr Bernadette Hince posed after she arrived in Yarralumla this week, the last suburb on her A-to-Z tour of Canberra by bike.
For more than a decade, Dr Hince has been slowly working through the list of Canberra’s gazetted suburbs and travelling to them from her home on her old Peugeot bike.
“I’ve lived in Canberra most of my life. There’s so many suburbs I don’t even know where they are. Then I thought maybe I could do it alphabetically. And then I thought, well maybe I could do it on my bike,” she said.
It comes as no surprise alphabetical order was the system of choice for Dr Hince, who is a visiting fellow at the Australian National Dictionary Centre and the author of The Antarctic Dictionary: A Complete Guide to Antarctic English.
While the alphabet is now a recurring theme in Dr Hince’s house and mind, it wasn’t always the way.
“My Dad had a second-hand bookshop in Melbourne. … I must have been about 12 once when he went out to lunch and I was there and I thought, I’ll rearrange the books,” she said.
“So I started on the Australian fiction and I did about the top two shelves. … And he looked at them and I’d gone big-big-big, smaller-smaller-smaller, and he said, ‘Oh, very good. We usually do it alphabetically.'”
‘Isn’t it a wonderful thing, riding a bike’? Bernadette Hince arrives in Yarralumla. Picture: Karleen Minney
Dr Hince, who only learned to ride a bicycle aged 27, said she was astonished sometimes she could stay on a bike: “Isn’t it a wonderful thing, riding a bike?”
But riding to each suburb in Canberra has its challenges, not least of which is the ever expanding list of destinations.
“At some stage, and I think it was in about 2012, I drew up a list of suburbs and a red line underneath, because when I started there were 99 suburbs, and it’s actually not completely easy to tell what a suburb is either. Some people regard Manuka as a suburb and other people don’t; I do, because it’s got shops, therefore it’s a suburb,” Dr Hince said.
“The list had grown from 99 to about 118, 120. Then a couple of suburbs got un-suburbed; they got absorbed in another suburb and their name disappeared.”
There were times when Dr Hince thought she would never finish, including a stint living away from Canberra.
“I’d done a lot of suburbs, then I moved and nothing happened for 18 months. Then I came back to Canberra and I thought, ‘I could actually finish this project, if I stay alive long enough’,” Dr Hince said.
After each ride, Dr Hince wrote a diary entry to record the trip; she hopes to collate and publish them. But it’s still hard to pick a favourite.
“I think I’ve got a special affection for Amaroo, and that was a long time ago, because that was when I realised that there’d be something interesting no matter what,” she said.
“If you get on your bike and you go somewhere, you’re going to see something interesting. And it also made me think, it would be lovely to live here.”
Next Sunday, all Canberrans will be encouraged to join Pedal Power’s annual Big Canberra Bike Ride, a year on from the COVID-19 pandemic which prompted a bike sales boom.
“Canberrans enjoy a wide range of riding disciplines, this is the one event each year which can bring us all together as one community,” Pedal Power chief executive Ian Ross said.
“After such a discouraging and disconnected year last year, we are looking forward to reinvigorating riders and building a sense of community and fun.”
The bike ride – which includes four different circuits ranging from 6 kilometres to 120 kilometres, covering all skill levels – will be held on Sunday, March 21, with a hub offering food and entertainment on King Edward Terrace.
Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content:
