What to do
The Canberra Times Marathon Festival. For those needing to shed some Easter egg weight or who just enjoy running, this event offers five different distances during which you can enjoy Canberra's beautiful lakeside and sights as you pound the ground. Choose from the marathon, half marathon, 10km, 5.4km or kids' 2km fun run. All races start near Old Parliament House. From Friday to Sunday, the Canberra Times Marathon Festival Expo has merchandise, race packs and more. And new in 2024: marathon finishers will receive a free finisher T-shirt. For more information and to register see: solemotive.com
Where to go
Holey Moley and Hijinx Hotel. Funlab's first ACT venues have been reported and now they're here. In Hijinx Hotel rooms, players work together to complete challenges. Four intriguingly named new rooms have been created just for Canberra: Clawesome, Zig-a-zag ah Ball Pool, Abandoned Arcade, and Basket Ballers. Each hole in Holey Moley is themed around pop culture and nostalgia with three new punny holes for Canberra: Look for the Bear necessiTEES, Wheel of FORE-tune, and You Wanna Pizza Me. They're on the ground level of the Canberra Centre on the corner of Cooyong Street and Ainslie Avenue. See: hijinxhotel.com.au and holeymoley.com.au
What to watch
Ripley. Take a walk on the dark side with this new Netflix series, based on Patricia Highsmith's novels. Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to convince his wayward son to return home. Tom accepts but things soon descend into a complex life of deceit, fraud and murder.
What to see
Brumbies v Waratahs. The ACT Brumbies will face their biggest Super Rugby rival when they host the NSW Waratahs at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night. The two bitter rivals have been trading barbs for almost 30 years and the second-placed Brumbies will be hoping to inflict pain on the struggling Waratahs, who have won just one of five games. The men's match starts at 7.35pm and is the second game of a double-header, with the Brumbies' women's side to play against the Fijian Drua at 5.05pm. The rugby matches are part of a massive weekend at the stadium. The Raiders play the Parramatta Eels at the venue on Sunday night in front of what will be one of the biggest crowds of the NRL season. See: ticketek.com.au
What to listen to
Beyonce's Cowboy Carter. This long-awaited and much discussed (not always politely) new studio album is Beyonce's eighth, the second in a planned trilogy that began with Renaissance. Beyonce became the first black woman to top Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart with the lead single, Texas Hold 'Em. Country music has its roots in African as well as European music so the crossover makes sense, but there's much more to the album than that. You can hear Beyonce's covers of the Dolly Parton classic Jolene and The Beatles' Blackbird as well as plenty of new material.
