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Burley Lake

What's on the Tile?

This apocryphal Magic Realm tile represents Canberra, Australia. (Tile design: Michael Goldenthal, Artist: Vittorio Alinari)

Canberra is the Capital City of Australia and is located in the Australian Capital Territory, 250km SW of Sydney.

Central to this city is an artificial lake called 'Lake Burley Griffin' after Canberra's American born designer, Walter Burley Griffin. The tile does bear a slight stylized resemblance to part of the lake, and the chit marked 'House of Cards' represents the Federal Government Parliament building. 'House of Cards' is a reference to a British TV series that deals with the nature of politicians.

Just to flesh the analogy out:

• The flag pole illustrated on the chit is the largest stainless steel thing in the world, so we were told. See: Wikipedia link
• The island at 1 is Aspen Island, and contains a large sculptural Carillion tower. See: Wikipedia link
• 5 is the original city centre known as Civic
• 3 and 4 is where Commonwealth Avenue bridge should be, to link North and South Canberra (as oriented, South Canberra is at the top of the tile). Some passing magic user must have enchanted the tile and zapped the bridge, I guess.
• The river exit to the right goes to Scrivener Dam. See: Wikipedia link (1st illustration)
• The lower left water exit is the Molonglo River which feeds the lake created by the building of the Scrivener Dam.
• The upper left water exit is East Basin, but at this point the analogy is getting pretty thin...

More information on Canberra: Wikipedia link