Canberra Times columnist Tim The Yowie Man dives into all things leaning in the region.
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00:00 One of the more unusual questions I've received lately
00:03 is does the Canberra region have its very own leaning tower
00:07 of Pisa or equivalent?
00:10 And while the short answer is no,
00:13 the region does have a surprising number of leaning things,
00:18 including this tower behind me.
00:21 More about that one later.
00:23 First, check out this hoop pine in Belmore Park in Goulburn,
00:28 which has earned the nickname as the leaning tree of Goulburn.
00:32 Council arborists regularly check
00:35 the vertically challenged pine for safety
00:37 and report that the lean is currently stable
00:40 at about 16 and a half degrees off the perpendicular.
00:44 That's a lot more than the leaning tower of Pisa,
00:46 which is only about four degrees off-center.
00:49 Meanwhile, when the symbolic Garden of Australian Dreams
00:52 at the National Museum of Australia
00:54 was created over 20 years ago,
00:56 a number of Italian alder trees
00:59 were planted purposefully on a tilt.
01:02 This was apparently done to represent the displacement
01:05 of some people arriving in Australia
01:08 from the Northern Hemisphere
01:09 and their yearning to return to their homelands.
01:13 Interestingly, over time, in search of light, no doubt,
01:16 the trunks of these trees have begun to straighten.
01:20 Now back to this playground
01:23 in the Canberra suburb of Gordon.
01:25 It was designed and created in the 1990s
01:29 by the Vikings Group,
01:31 a not-for-profit community and sports group
01:34 that wanted to inject some funds and community assets
01:38 into the local suburbs.
01:40 The president of the group at the time said,
01:43 "We're gonna put up a leaning tower
01:46 "because the kids are gonna have fun."
01:48 And that's what they've done for almost three decades.
01:51 In fact, if you walk around the region here in South Canberra
01:55 it's hard to find any kid, or big kid for that matter,
01:59 that hasn't had at least one afternoon of fun
02:02 on the leaning tower of Gordon.
02:05 (upbeat music)
02:08 (upbeat music)
02:10 [BLANK_AUDIO]