Monday, October 27, 2008

Magic MOments


The weather is warming and shorts are the attire of choice as October ends and Movember approaches. Sometimes I love living here in Canberra and then other times I absolutely despair… usually between 9 to 5 Monday to Friday, but also now and again at weekends. In summary from my rambling moan: Canberra needs fewer public servants and more beaches.

Saturday presented the chance to visit a beach, some two hours distant over the hills and far away, but the journey breezed by with my mate Jason in tow (though the quickest part of the drive seemed to be when he was asleep). There were no particular destinations, just a chance to get some fish and chips, laze about and take random strolls around the ever immaculate beaches of this beautiful part of this country.


Despite pretty fine weather the area was surprisingly quiet, which is probably all well and good since it would only have filled up with public servants taking a break from their hectic week. Perhaps there was some committee meeting concerning the committee responsible for convening meetings with the forms branch of the purchasing department working group. Blah blah blah. Whatever, they missed out, with things getting better and better as the day progressed, taking in ice cream, dolphins and the beautifully isolated Emily Beach pounded by waves and cloaked by the lowering sun.



Ah, I could get used to this…

BOOF! Back to reality, land locked and surfing the tempestuous torrents of bureaucracy. It all makes me want to stroke my chin in a contemplating sort of way. Or indeed stroke above my lip, gently caressing and nurturing an area of prime real estate for hairy happenings. For the next month, thoughts of idyllic beachside lifestyles and inane public service nonsense will dissipate, swept away by a big black, and possibly grey and ginger (?!) brush… http://canberramos.blogspot.com/

Monday, October 13, 2008

Down at the bottom of the garden

This weekend was a bit like the antithesis of the previous weekend. For rain substitute sun, bush replaces beach and mile upon mile in the car becomes pottering about in the garden and afternoon naps. The garden is coming on strong and though not la crème de la Captain Cook Crescent, there are some fine native plants along with some introduced species (the lettuce in particular expanding at the same rate the banks are collapsing…)





All this cultivation and spring growth is all a bit English-like, so for more contrast I arose early on Sunday for a short trip down to Namadgi National Park and a walk through the serene bushland to Square Rock, a rock who is a bit nerdy, likes maths and will dob you in compared to the other rocks around here.




Near here, tucked away in another quiet valley is the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex, Australia’s answer to The Kennedy Space Centre, complete with little model spaceships and moon rock and the always fascinating vacuum packed food portions. It was a pleasant diversion, more for the coffee and cake than anything else, and the cake wasn’t the only big dish around here!



So last weekend was a long weekend and, as it turned out, this one was too as I took Monday off thanks to ‘Birthday Leave’. It reminded me of those blessed four day weeks back in England (damn you 457 visa!), the slightly guilty-kid-mitching-from-school feeling you get as you munch on brunch in Kingston and go for a walk in nearby Bowen Park. Here it seemed spring had ejaculated in a flurry of white stuff, wispy blossom and fluffy tree bits creating a snow like blanket amongst the trees.



The increasing wind was a major player and seemed to be creating havoc elsewhere with the public servant’s dog tags which they insist on wearing everywhere – clattering across shoulders once 12 noon came and transforming my nice quiet visit to the shops into a dodge the pube on their extended lunch break and hope I don’t bump into any clients challenge. With such paper shuffling thoughts, bureaucracy well and truly peaked as I attempted to complete my tax return in the afternoon and, I think it is a sign from above, the storm clouds gathered as the long weekend came to an end. I think I should stop writing there, as the lightning is getting perilously close and I can see this blog coming to a premature en

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

A Kookaburra ate my Chicken!

OK, it’s not quite a dingo stole my baby but it’s true (more of that later)!!

The scene of this crime was the Lower North Coast of NSW, where I was headed for the long Labour Day weekend, a public holiday which couldn’t quite align with my birthday but allowed for a drive further afield. The drive was broken up by Sydney, a mere three hours up a gusty, stormy Hume Highway on Friday night. Sydney was steamy but the storms came rolling in, cooling it down and bringing a grey, damp start to the weekend. Only a fantastic breakfast in Coogee could brighten the mood and it sure did that.

And with that my friend Jill and I whizzed north. Well I say whizzed but it took over an hour to get over the Harbour Bridge and up out of the Northern suburbs of Sydney. The journey seemed to get even longer when we made a detour to Uluru and I decided it was worth the climb. Somehow Uluru seemed to have moved on top of a service station off the Pacific Highway, but hey ho, whatever. And after several hours, we arrived at Pacific Palms, just south of Forster and in an area they call the Great Lakes, famed for lakes and greatness.

An initial exploration was cut short by yet another storm rolling in and so there was little to do but go eat up in Forster. Everyone else seemed to be doing the same however, so while the dinner of fish and chips was pretty good, the on a lap in the Magna in a dark car park was hardly Michelin star.

The next day promised something a bit brighter and it was oh so nice to be able to get up, wander down the hill, stroll along Elizabeth Beach and watch the dolphins milling about beyond the breakers. Follow that with coffee and cake at a very laid back, slightly crazy place nearby and all was pretty chilled. Further stops on the morning tour took in Cape Hawke, where a lookout was hazed in and accompanied by Ronan Keating singing when tomorrow never comes (you had to be there) and a trip down to Seal Rocks, which despite being down a dirt road seemed to be somewhat frenetically filled with smelly backpackers and similar types. Just round the corner, and in Myall Lakes National Park, was Sugarloaf Point and a lighthouse which claims to be the on the second most easterly point in Australia. Second best but first rate views, if somewhat blustery.



It would be an ideal spot for a tearoom but food had to wait until Smiths Lake, where I bought a Chicken burger to snack on down on some picnic tables beside the water. All was going well and I was nearing the peak of the meal… saving the best until last, when down swooped a Kookaburra, snatched it out of my hand and simply left me in mild shock and severe rage. You’re just a glorified shite-hawk!

The Kookaburra incident clearly left me shocked so it was lucky that the sun really started to shine and I was able to spend a couple of hours down on secluded Shelly Beach, though not so secluded as to conceal some chubby lard ass dangling his tackle on his jaunts from a hidden rocky inlet down to the water. We stuck to the more child friendly side of the beach, reading, occasionally strolling along the water and generally being very content. Now this is what I had come here for.



Now I hear you saying, nice beach, but where are these Great Lakes? Well, the main one is a mere stone throw from the coast across a narrow strip of land. Despite being a boaties mecca (judging by the fish jumping you can understand why), it remains pretty serene, especially as the sun disappears behind yet more cloud…


So Australia has great beaches and great lakes. It also apparently has great hogspitality at the Hog’s Breath Café, a chain of meaty places scattered across the country, where it seems any true blue Aussie still calls home. It’s one of those, oh I know, let’s be zany and put an old tricycle on the ceiling and a number plate on that pillar. Nice steak but I honestly don’t see what all the fuss is about, especially when this country (well, the cities at least) has so much going for it food-wise. Still, least it was Kookaburra free!

And so it was Monday, the public holiday and a day to sit in a car, drive 750 kilometres, get cabin fever coupled with sugar rush and sing out loud slightly naff songs from Floorfillers disc two. The weather was grey, then slightly brighter around the inland town of Gloucester before pelting it down around Stroud. Back on the Pacific Highway the traffic built around Hexham and Newcastle and it wasn’t just the place names which were starting to resemble England. Yet somehow, thanks to the sugar and floorfillers, it was an absolute hoot.


Detour number two brought brighter weather and a very scenic if slightly bendy drive along the Hawkesbury River to Wiseman’s Ferry, reached, not at all ironically, by ferry. Here, the sun was out and almost all of Western Sydney were picnicking and despite this it was very pleasant. The power was out and no coffee was available but it was still very pleasant. It would’ve been nice to stay but time was getting on and we threaded our way back down to Windsor and across Western Sydney back to Coogee.

Here, the last rays of sun were filtering their way out to sea (at a pleasingly late 7pm… oh yes, daylight saving) and we finished things off with a Brazilian Barbecue meat fest (still making up for that stolen chicken). That was really it, apart from it wasn’t really it as I still had the three hour drive back to Canberra, across another blustery Hume Highway, fuelled only by intense service station coffee, more shout out loud singing and memories of the great weekend.