Canberra - Australian Capital Territory

January 2013

The train journey to Canberra takes 4 hours and other than open countryside and trees there are very few populated areas in-between, at least of any great size. A similar journey in the UK and you'd be passing one industrialised area one after the other, this country is so big and has so much space its hard to comprehend. So i arrived in the train station at Canberra and I had to laugh to myself. My couch surfing host had kindly offered to pick me up from the station. Maybe it was due to the mishap in Perth but my initial concern was, where will I find her, I've never met her before. So i text her something along the lines of where would you like us to meet, she confidently replied I'll find you. Ok i thought,  hope she is right. Not until I arrived could i understand her surety. The station is a tiny, end of the line station with a waiting room and one entrance in and out. I wasn't going to get lost even if i tried.

4 hours of this

She picked me up and we chatted and swapped life stories, I met her husband (McComas)who had very kindly been preparing a stuffed aubergine for our evening meal. Janet explained that their two daughters had both couch surfed in Europe and had managed to survive on a minuscule budget per day and the good nature of strangers. She said she believed if she looked after couch surfers here in Canberra, then someone would be looking after her daughters in Europe, I thought it was a nice way of thinking. I love how couch surfing provides these opportunities for people.

I had a vague idea about what I wanted to do in Canberra, there was a exhibition on at The National Portrait Gallery which i thought was worth a look and also The War Memorial.

When Janet asked me had i seen any kangaroos wince being in Australia i suddenly realised i hadn't seen with a Koala Bear, or a Kangaroo. I had been here for 6 weeks, It clearly wasn't right. so after dinner (i still think of it as tea but some people just don't get it) McComos and i went for a walk to the end of their road were we followed a dirt path, within a minute a dark blob ran across our path alone, This was my first sighting of a Wallaby. Apparently they're independent creatures who usually travel alone and very rarely are still so close to people.

The next thing we saw was a Kangaroo a little in the distance. We kept walking and i was busy taking pictures, when all of a sudden i realised that i was surrounded by the buggers. They were everywhere. Without exaggerating i think i stopped counting at about 20 odd. My favourite one was this old Kangaroo, who used his tale more than the others did to help him walk, a little like a walking stick i guess. He was chasing all the young kangagarangers and they were hopping away, hoping he'd loose interest but he didn't loose interest, he just couldn't keep up :)

Being the great tour guide he is McAmos gave me a little background information on the 'roos. Apparently they don't do as much damage to the land as other animals do such as cows and sheep. The eat the vegetation further away from the root and they do not disturb as much of the land as they're much more delicate on there toes. Apparently in substance farming ways they are much more considerate to the area in which they live and we really should eat more of them to stop damaging the land in the way that cows and sheep do. I was also told they're free range so taste great. I've not tried one yet, but i will :)

So the nest day i visited the city centre. I saw The National Portrait Gallery and realised, i don't know Australian Celebrities so i kind of mixed out on some of the importance of some of the pictures. The National Gallery was good and i saw Parliament House, Old Parliament House and the Aboriginal Embassy.

What a great pear you have

Back to the future?

Apparently it used to be bigger

That night we went out for a meal and i ate Ethiopian food for the first time. I really liked it, lots of grains, lots of pulses; not forgetting this bizarre bread which i guess was similar to naan bread, but had a very sponge like consistency. I still enjoyed it, whatever it was made out of, apparently i was told the bread was made from the smallest type of grain. After dinner we went on a drive through the city suburbs and as the drag racing (not men in frocks the other type of drag) was in town and the students were not we saw lots of beer drinking guys sat on the tops of cars, looking like ageing hooligans. I'd like to think some of them were nice people really. Here they're called 'Bogans'

We drove to the top of a hill, which the name if escapes me, but from the view point at the top you could see all of Canberra. including the Anzac Avenue. From this view point it was clear how Canberra was purpose built and pretty the layout is. The lake with the symmetrical bridges leading to Parliament House. Airport to the left and not very much to the right. It made me laugh, my hosts said they rarely use Canberra airport as there are no direct international flights, instead they drive or get the bus to Sydney International, as it's only 3 hours drive away. I don't think that a drive of only three hours would be seen the same way back at home. If people had to drive for 3 hours to get to their airport i wonder how many would still fly, so often at least.  

So back for another early night i was doing really well at catching up on sleep. This sleeping in hostels in Sydney is really not my type of travelling, I've got bed bug bites, sleepless nights and a mattress in a bunk bed which i can feel the slats through. The next morning i had very kindly been offered a lift to the war memorial because it was a little time consuming to reach on public transport and given my departure in the early afternoon, i was working against the clock.

The war memorial was amazing. I followed a tour around for part of the trip and found that the manner in which it was performed left such a sombre note. The memorial took in all the conflicts which Australia and New Zealand had been involved in. It showed all the servicemen who had been lost during  the first and second world wars in Egypt and France. It was also demonstrating the actions of Australia in Vietnam, Cambodia, Zaire and Indonesia. 

My main disappointment came when the tour guide got to the amiga decoding device which was massively influential in the ending of the second world war. She mentioned about the hardworking men who helped de-scramble the code, yet no mention was made of Alan Turning or how he was treated after the war (he was gay and chemically castrated because of it). I guess his legacy isn't so prominent here as it could be, but I'm sure there have been lost of great people who have helped to finish wars who's work is often overlooked and not recognised in the manner which would be most appropriate.

Still not a wasted visit by anyones mean i made my excuses and left the tour for my rail replacement bus service back to Sydney, and would you believe the coach was over 30 minutes faster than by train, marvellous!