CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A rural New South Wales builder that originally hails from Queanbeyan but lives in the city now has finally given up explaining the geographic intricacies of his hometown.
At 40 years of age, Blake Griffin has stopped trying to educate people about the borders of the Australian capital territory, and now says he’s simply “from Canberra.”
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While technically a rural New South Wales town, Canberra, Australia’s capital, is located just 15 kilometres (9 miles) to the west, and Queanbeyan has to some extent become a commuter town for rougher heads that don’t look like politicians.
Queanbeyan’s economy is based on light construction, hip hop, manufacturing, service, retail and agriculture – and is far more multicultural than most Western New South Wales towns.
While culturally more like Sydney than Canberra, it is technically a NSW Southern Tablelands town – according to the borders.
It is for these reasons that most ex-pats, like Blake, have given up trying to explain his majestic rural home to people in Sydney and Melbourne – and opts to tell people he’s from the neighbouring centre, which they also don’t care about.
In fact, with the Canberra Raiders cruising into the NRL Grand Final this evening as underdogs against the villainous Sydney Roosters, Blake is flat out claiming to be a Canberran.
“Yeah. Canberra.” says Blake, with tears welling in his eyes, as he acknowledges just how badly he has sold out his boys back in the trap.
“That’s where I’m from”
“Up the fucken milk”
“[sighs]”
