Get Away with Dre: Things to do in Canberra
Monday 10 March is Canberra Day giving the Canberrans a long weekend to celebrate their naming day. The official naming of Canberra happened on 12th March 1913 by Lady Denman and to celebrate we’ll go through a few events and things you can do in the Captial that’s worth visiting to celebrate Canberra.
Sunflower Maze
The Majura Valley Farm have a garden maze that’s not like others. Forget your averge trimmed high hedges and lose yourself in a sea of golden blooms in a maze made from towering sunflowers. Remember the sunflower fad? Majura Valley Farm listened and stepped up the game.
It can be cute fun family day out, a romantic countryside escape or just to a place to take some sick photos. You can also pick a max of 5 sunflowers to keep (which you’ll have to pay for). It’s a ticketed event to manage big crowds.
The Majura Valley Farm is also a great place to visit when the Sunflower Maze is out of season. They have farm-fresh produce and locally made goods, and you can also learn about their sustainable farm practices.
They won the 2013 ACT Landcare Award for Innovation in Sustainable Farm Practices and work with Greening Australia to return 10% of the property to native woodland. They now have over 49 native bird species established on the land.
The Sunflower Maze runs from 1st March till Sunday 16 March.
Art Gallery hopping
There are so many art galleries in the Capital.
Canberra Museum & Art Gallery, National Art Gallery of Australia, Parkes. The NGA is where you’ll find all the cool pieces from Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock and Sidney Nolan, there’s also the sculpture garden around the outside of NGA while you’ll have to explore to find each artwork.
National Portrait Gallery, and the Canberra Contemporary, Parkes. You can view The Reckoning by Kate Stevens. Powerful pieces examining the art of alleged war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces during the War in Afghanistan. Looks at the whistleblower soldiers who risked themselves to speak out, and the Afghan sites where civilians were allegedly murdered. Kate Stevens challenges our tendency to see figures as heroes, erasing the otherside of the story.
Mountain Biking & Cycling Trails
If you love cycling and mtb, you’ll love Canberra.
Stromlo has 50kms of XC trails, dirt jump tracks and downhill. On Fridays, over the weekend and during public holidays a bus shuttle takes you and your bike up the hill so you can send it downhill and shuttle you up again. They also have a 1.2km criterium cycling circuit.
Majura Pines MTB Trails and Cotter Pines MTB Trails. Cotter Pines opened in December 2019 by the Kolwalski Brothers Trailworks and as the name suggests, is a pine plantation and can be used for recreation until clearing and harvesting in 2036. After which the pines will go through their plantation period again for a number of years before being cleared again.
Cotter Pines has a network of 11 trails which are also dog friendly so you can mtb with your doggos. It’s close to Cotter Dam and Cotter River, the best place to cool down for a swim after your ride.
Canberra Centenary Trail is the best trail in Canberra. It’s one big 145km loop around the edges of Canberra, taking you on a variety of trails: cycleway, road, single track, fire trail and road. You can do the whole trail in 3 days (45 kms per day), or do bits of it over several weekends.
The idea is to do a section, get off your bike and explore an area, it’s museum, art gallery, cafe, shops, arboretum, zoo etc; then get back on your bike to continue the ride to the next section. Here’s some highlight sections on our bikepacking trip on the Canberra Centenary Trail.
Canberra Balloon Spectacular, John Dunmore Lang Place
The Canberra Balloon Spectacular runs from the 15th – 23rd March alongside the Canberra Multicultural Festival and Englighten Festival.
It’s the longest running hot air balloon festival, where hot air balloons fill the Canberra sky every morning from the break of dawn. For 2025 it will be at John Dunmore Lang Place in the National Triangle, along the shore of Lake Burley Griffin.
You can even be on a kayak or boat on Lake Burley Griffin to watch the balloons take off.
