If you want to make the book more challenging, you might like to
temporarily tape the edges of the two answers pages together (don't use
glue otherwise you'll have trouble opening them up again!). Then you can
cut the tape apart later on.
The moths wandering around the edge of this page are bogong moths, of course!
Here are the full names, locations, and meanings for all the words in this puzzle.
(Main Reference : ACT Planning and Land Authority)
- Aranda, first suburb in Belconnen; name of Aboriginal Tribe of Central Australia; Street theme - Names of Aboriginal Tribal Units.
- Badimara Street, in Waramanga & Fisher; Name of Aboriginal tribal unit who occupied area near Yalgoo, Western Australia.
- Cooleman Court, Weston Creek shopping centre; Aboriginal word associated with the area, thought to mean 'shield'. Also name of the prominent geographical feature situated in the area known as Cooleman Ridge.
- Corinna Street, Phillip & Lyons; a settlement on the Pieman River, Tasmania, which was named after the Aboriginal name for Pieman River.
- Dawar Place, Giralang; Cape York Aboriginal word for star.
- Elouera Street, Braddon; Aboriginal word meaning pleasant place.
- Gadali Crescent, Ngunnawal; a Ngunnawal word meaning to hunt.
- Garema Place, City; Aboriginal word meaning camp.
- Guginya Crescent, Ngunnawal; Ngunnawal word meaning kookaburra.
- Gula Place, Ngunnawal; Ngunnawal word meaning koala bear.
- Gungahlin, major town centre in Canberra's north; name probably derived from "Goongarline" meaning little rocky hill.
- Ipima Street, Braddon; Aboriginal word meaning two.
- Jerrabomberra Avenua, Narrabundah & Symonston; An Aboriginal word said to mean afraid of lightning; also recorded as the name of an Aborigine.
- Jindalee Crescent, O'Malley; Aboriginal word meaning bare hill.
- Kallaroo Road, Pialligo; Aboriginal word meaning a road leading to water.
- Mura Close, Ngunnawal; Ngunnawal word meaning pathway.
- Murrumbidgee River; Aboriginal word meaning big water
- Namadgi Circuit, Palmerston; National Park in South of the ACT; and Mountain in Namadgi National Park; name given by local Aborigines to mountains south-west of Canberra.
- Namatjira Drive, Weston Creek; Albert Namatjira was an Aboriginal landscape painter (1902-1959); held successful exhibition at the Fine Arts Society Gallery, Melbourne, 1938, where he was widely acclaimed.
- Nari Street, Ngunnawal; The Nari Nari was an Aboriginal tribal unit whose homeland was south of the junction of the Lachlan and Murrumbidgee Rivers, NSW. The explorer Charles Sturt met the Nari Nari in 1830.
- Narrabundah Lane, Symonston and suburb name; Aboriginal place name, meaning small hawk, associated with the locality since the days of the early settlers.
- Ngunnawal, suburb in Gungahlin; Aboriginal people of the local district, numbering about 500 persons; lived as gatherers moving across the plains and into the mountain valleys in small groups to hunt and camp.
- Tharwa Drive, Tuggeranong, and township; Name of Aboriginal origin, associated with the district since the early days of settlement. Tharwa gained its name from the nearby mountain, now named Tennent, but called by the Aborigines "Tharwa".
- Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve; derived from Aboriginal word 'Jedbinbilla', meaning 'place where boys are made into men'.
- Yambina Crescent, Waramanga; Name of Aboriginal tribal unit; occupied area south-east of Lake Buchanan, Queensland.
Page 4 - Spot-the-Difference
The original photo that I used as reference for this puzzle was on the ACT Heritage Library's web site,
which is unfortuately not functioning at the moment.
Page 5 - Pioneering Clueless Crossword
The properties and stations mentioned in this puzzle are :
- Lanyon - a sheep and cattle station established in 1835,
originally owned by James Wright and John Lanyon, and later the
Cunningham family.
- Duntroon - one of the first properties on the Limestone Plains, owned by Robert Campbell.
- Mugga Mugga - an 'out station' of the huge Duntroon Estate, a home for Duntroon employees.
- Springvale - homestead in the Weetangera area, established by Samuel Shumack in 1865.
- Weetangera - name associated with the area since the days of the early settlers, and the name of a Parish before the creation of the Australian Capital Territory.
- Yarralumla - owned by Francis Mowatt, then Terrence Aubrey Murray after 1842, and Frederick Campbell in 1881; the name is a corruption
of the Aboriginal name for the area, Arralumna or
Yarrowlumley.
- Woden - Dr James Murray (Terrence's brother) named his
property after the Norse God Woden (or Odin), who was the god of
learning, as well as the god of war!
The settlers mentioned are:
- Stuart Marjoribanks Mowle (pioneer farmer, employed at Yarralumla Station)
- Andrew Morton (pioneer doctor and coroner in the Queanbeyan district)
- George Thomas Palmer (owned land called Palmerville, on Ginninderra Creek)
- Robert Campbell (in 1825 he took up grant of land on the Limestone Plains (the Canberra
district) and built the homestead 'Duntroon', naming it after the
Campbell Castle in Scotland)
In the 1850s the 'big' families on the Limestone Plains were the
wealthy Campbells at Duntroon, and the Murrays at Yarralumla. They had many
people living on their properties, as workers or tenants. St John's
Church (built by Campbell) was the only public building in the area, and
Queanbeyan was the nearest town, around 10 miles away.
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Page 6 - Mysterious Secret Code
Mary Mowle's Diary is the only record of early settler life on the
Canberry Plains written by a woman. The original manuscript is held
in the Manuscript Collection at
the National Library. It is written in
incredibly spidery and fine script, which is quite hard to read. Some
sections of the diary have been crossed out in black pen by a descendant
of Mary's - maybe she was complaining about someone!
You can also read about Mary Mowle's life and extracts from
her diary in the book A Colonial Woman : The Life and Times of Mary
Braidwood Mowle, 1827-1857 by Patricia Clark (Allen and Unwin, 1986).
The big stone house where the Mowles lived was run down, but had ten
rooms and a large basement. They lived there for more than five years.
It was demolished in the 1920s.
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Page 7 - Confused Cottages
All four heritage buildings shown here are open to the public (at particular times). See the links section above, once you've
solved the puzzle! It's great fun going to these places and seeing what life was like over a hundred years ago.
Page 9 - Natural Environment Crossword
You can find out more about Australian native plants at the Australian National Botanic Gardens.
Jervis Bay is a part of the Australian Capital Territory, on the south coast.
Back to the top
Page 10 - ACT Maze
This is a pretty wriggly maze! It took quite a while to draw,
especially since I wanted you to still be able to see the names of
places around the Australian Capital Territory.
I didn't get to put much about Queanbeyan in this book, but you can
find out more about this town that was officially named a township in 1838. The Cultural Map of
Queanbeyan has lots of interesting information.
The birds on this page are a Superb Fairy-wren, an Eastern Spinebill, and a Maned Duck (also known as the Australian Wood Duck).
You can find out more about the Googong
Dam and Foreshores here.
Back to the top
Page 11 - Canberra's Emblems
You can see a picture of the Royal Bluebell
and even find out how to grow them!
Back to the top
Page 12 - Building the Capital
There is a lot of history in this one little puzzle! The whole story
of Australian Federation, the selection of a site for the capital city,
all the politics and years of arguments, the controversial international
competition to design the capital (some people thought we should have
only worked with Australian designers), and the final selection of
Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahoney Griffin's entry are only the
start of the story of Canberra! The
Ideal City? online exhibition gives a good account of this part of
Canberra's history.
King O'Malley was quite a character. He was an American, and a member
of the first Federal Parliament. He launched the design competition, as
Minister for Home Affairs. There is a brief biography of him here.
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Page 13 - A Day at St John's Schoolhouse
Even though the words you add will make this into a very silly
story, the basics are quite true. St John's Schoolhouse was the first
school in the Canberra region, and built by Robert Campbell for his
workers' children - which was an unusual thing to do in those days.
The Schoolhouse is a great place to
visit - as well as the Church next to it. You can also read more
about the history of the Schoolhouse in Canberra's First
Schoolhouse by Hope Hewitt (ISBN 0-7316-1371-6).
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Page 14 - Walter Burley Griffin's Plan Maze
This maze took over four days to draw and design. I started by
tracing a copy of original city plan submitted by the Griffins. Then
I had to figure out the maze path, and then make the tricky side paths
by adding all sorts of 'road blocks'. There was a lot of testing, a lot
of colouring-in of different paths, and quite a few headaches!
The narrow 'back alleys' were in the Griffins' original plans - they
were meant to provide access to the backs of houses, so garages and so
on wouldn't be out the front of homes. These were removed from later
versions of the city plans.
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Page 15 - 1930s Acrostic Quotation
This puzzle was probably the hardest word puzzle to write! Finding a good, short quotation, breaking it
down into letters, finding new words that use exactly the same set of letters, and writing clues for these new
words is only the start! There's a lot of coordinates to check, grids to draw up, and heaps of testing!
Back to the top
Page 16 - A Secret Message from the 1930s and Jumbled Suburbs
Canberra has a lot more suburbs than people generally think there are. Some of them are suburbs in name only; construction hasn't
started yet - here's the full list!
Back to the top
Page 17 - Spot-the-Difference
The original photo I used in this puzzle was in the ACT Heritage Library online collection.
Unfortunately their online image library is not functioning at the moment.
Back to the top
Page 18 - World War II in Canberra Story Crossword
Both World Wars had a big effect on Canberra - laregly by stopping
construction! WWI stopped the competition to design Parliament House, a
competition which didn't actually happen until 1979. That's one of the
reasons we ended up with a 'temporary' Parliament House for so long.
If you want to read more about Canberra during war time, read
Canberra - a History of Australia's Capital by Davies, Hoffman, and
Price (ACT Ministry for Health, Education and the Arts, 1990, ISBN 1 86331 0495).
The book Not without my corsets! by Marion and Fionna Douglas (1996) also
has fascinating stories of returned WWI servicemen, who were granted small plots
around Canberra, and the struggles they had making a living on the land.
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Page 19 - Secret Message from the 1960s
This quotation was written by a man called Graham, who grew up in Canberra
in the 1960s. I found this quotation in the book Stories of the Inner South,
which was published by the Community Literature Program.
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Page 20 - Around Town CrossQuiz
See how well you know your Canberra landmarks with this puzzle! You
might need a bit of help from a Canberra map, or a friend. A few of the
answers are actually illustrated (and named) in the drawings around the
crossword.
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Page 21 - Canberra Suburbs
You can get some help with this puzzle at the ACTPLA Street Name
Search web site - but before you click on the link, see if you can
figure the suburb themes out for yourself.
The suburb names I chose are closely related to the themes (which is not
always the case), so you may be able to figure it out for yourself. For
example, what was Howard Florey known for? And find out about Henry
Handel Richardson - you might get a surprise!
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Page 22 - 1965 Map Maze
The 1965 map of Canberra used in this puzzle was available online at the
ACT Heritage Library, but it is unfortunately not available online any longer.
Back to the top
Page 24 - Landmark Dot-to-Dot
The photo I used as reference for this puzzle was from the 'Reflections of Canberra" CD-ROM, put out by the
ACT Heritage Library.
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Page 25 - Notable Canberrans Find-a-Word
It took me some time to come up with a good list of names for this puzzle, that represent Canberrans from across our
whole history.
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Page 26 - A Secret Message from Parliament
Our Parliament House is quite an amazing place - the building is unique, and has all sorts of interesting things to discover.
Not to mention the actual workings of Parliament! The Parliament House web site has a great
Students site.
Did you know that up to 5,000 people work at Parliament House at any one time? No wonder they need a big car park!
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Page 27 - The ACT Flag and Who's Who?
You can see more about the ACT Flag at the Chief Minister's Flags and Emblems
web page. There are a lot of rules on how our flag can be used, and how to display and handle it.
The women in the Who's Who puzzle have been influential in the history of Canberra, and are only four of many amazing women!
The Women in the making of Canberra Online Exhibition is a good place to
find out more.
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Page 28 - Awesome Architecture
Canberra is home to some really wonderful buildings, from the days of
early European settlement to the latest post-Modern national monuments. Many
of these places have interesting stories to tell, and are worth having a
second look at. If you're really into architecture, a good book to get
is Canberra Architecture by Andrew Metcalf (Watermark Press,
2004).
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Page 29 - Canberra's Suburbs and Streets CrossQuiz
I admit it, this one is hard - I like to finish my books with a real challenge! You will probably find
the ACTPLA Street Name Search very helpful.
