Blood, vomit, broken glass. These aren't usually the first words that come to mind when imagining City Walk, but it's different when Craig Harrington steps on the scene early on Sunday mornings.
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Mr Harrington has been an ACT government city street cleaner for 14 years.
He is part of a team that transforms Civic from post-party apocalyptic wasteland to clean street in a matter of hours, armed with blowers, sweepers, scrubbers, steamers and more.
Sunday morning is always the messiest.
"Sunday is absolutely trashed: rubbish, broken glass, blood, vomit, cigarette wrappers, empty cans, empty bottles, takeaway wrappers - it's just everywhere," Mr Harrington said.
"People come in on a Sunday morning, they don't realise what it looked like because they're not in there until 10am. I often have said to the public, 'you should come for a drive here at 6am'."
The task is generally underappreciated - perhaps a sign of the quality of the job done by the team.
"[Sometimes] you've just finished cleaning an area and someone comes and flicks their cigarette butt on the ground and drops their coffee cup right in front of you, two feet from the garbage bin," he said.
"We're doing a job I daresay is appreciated but a lot of the time is not really shown."
Despite working with "really good staff", Mr Harrington said the "lazy government worker" tag was sometimes hard to shake.
"A lot of people probably think we can't get jobs anywhere else and look down on us," he said.
"The blokes come in and do the best they can. We show pride in what we do.
"We've got blokes who have owned their own business, owned two or three houses, but they've just had enough. They like the outside life."
When he's not in and out of the office during stints as acting supervisor, Mr Harrington also enjoys the fresh air - even the minus degree temperatures during the middle of winter.
"I like the cold - give me the cold any day over the heat," he said.
"I like to be out and about."
During these hours he has got to know another group of Canberrans who are often misunderstood by the broader community - Civic's homeless population.
"We try to keep an eye out for them," Mr Harrington said.
"We've got people who have been around for years who have their sleeping bags and things like that, there's more of that happening. You get to know some of them by their names.
"We might get a complaint about a trolley that's full of clothes, so you have a look, and you say, 'oh, that's just so-and-so's'. We'll leave it because we know he will be back tonight to get it. That's his home."
