11 things you’re missing out on by not living in Queanbeyan

Free parking.

You don’t have to pay for parking anywhere in Queanbeyan. Anywhere. Let that sink in.

A carwash named Guns-n-Hoses.

Genius. Who wouldn’t want to wash their lowered canary yellow VL Commodore there?

An actual stake in the State of Origin.

Imagine sitting down to watch the greatest game on earth and actually caring who won. Imagine wearing your NSW Blues jersey all week ahead of the big game, and cooking a BBQ out the back in the bitter cold for all your Blues-supporting mates who’d shown up for The Decider. We bleed Blue over here in Queanbeyan (and Canberra Raiders green too, admittedly) and it ramps the rivalry up five notches.

A main street.

Yes, you have a nominal main street in Canberra, but you can’t walk from shop to shop, cafe to cafe and run into 18,000 people you know in the space of 20 minutes, can you?

Monaro Street, Queanbeyan, is a beautiful strip of heritage retail buildings dating back to the late 1800s, a few more modern spaces, and several pubs and cafes. It takes about seven minutes to walk end-to-end, and it’s country NSW at its finest.

More than one decent pub.

Within a single kilometre we have the Hotel Queanbeyan, Walsh’s Hotel, Royal Hotel and the Tourist Hotel. They’ve all had glamorous makeovers and offer a ripper pub feed. Talk about spoilt.

One postcode.

2620 for life.

A mayor and an unofficial mayor.

In Queanbeyan, the mayor is a young dad-of-three named Kenrick Winchester. He’s been in the role for almost three years now, attended local primary and high schools and loves the region so much he used to be the head of the Canberra Raiders Army (disclaimer: he’s my younger brother).

But every NSW country town has an ‘unofficial mayor’, generally a bloke who can drink everyone under the table and who’s on a first name basis with just about everyone and their 10 kids. In Queanbeyan, that man is Rocky Burnell, a former rugby league star who, now retired, sits on several local fundraising committees and never turns down a party invite.

Freehold property.

There’s no paying to borrow land from the government in New South Wales. When you buy land over here in God’s country, you actually own it. Which makes it easier to pass on to the generations after you, and means less administrative overhead.

Green P plates.

While we’ve simplified the postcode situation, we’ve gone and made the provisional licence situation way more complex than it needs to be. After passing your driving test in Queanbeyan, you’re on your red Ps for a year, and then your green Ps for the following two years. In a nutshell, you can drive at a maximum of 100km/h on your green Ps and you have seven demerit points (as opposed to 90km/h and four demerit points on your red Ps).

Homes older than Canberra itself.

The rich history of Queanbeyan is woven throughout the entire city, and is a beautiful reminder of where we’ve been. Smaller heritage homes near Queanbeyan’s town park – like this one – are always in huge demand, while icons like Hibernia Lodge, built in 1865 for the Clerk of Petty Sessions, Obadiah Williams, and pictured above, stand like rare gems among our shopping district along the Queanbeyan River.

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This tongue-in-cheek article was written by Zango editor Bree Element, a born and bred Queanbeyan girl.