Anzac Day 2007, Canberra

The Big Smoke

For some reason I have been craving some big city action lately – things like traffic, smog, the sound of sirens, crazy people muttering on park benches, having to walk down streets and watch where you are going to avoid bumping into people, that kinda thing. I guess it’s that buzz and that edge which is missing in Canberra, the richness and diversity of humankind living on top of one another. And so conveniently I was off to Australia’s largest city for the weekend.

Saturday was a fine day and I got my fill of several crazy people muttering as I walked through Hyde Park, tried to avoid bumping into people at the Pitt Street Mall, eventually crossing the traffic lined siren filled streets and reaching the mecca of diversity, Circular Quay. I had a nice coffee watching the world and two people dressed up as potatoes go by, then suitably milled around myself, taking a stroll along the western side of the quay, passing a wedding ceremony and standing under the thunderous rumbling of the Harbour Bridge.

Whilst I have been down under for a while now and have been to Sydney several times, there is still something rather exciting about visiting Circular Quay and taking in two of Australia’s most famous sights.

As the day progressed I met up with Georgina who was in town for a christening. Seeing as it was such a nice day there is still nothing finer to do in Sydney than to hit the water, yet again on that splendid Manly Ferry. Sit on the port side on the lower deck, feet dangling over the railings and look back at the city as the ferry turns past Bradleys Head, the sun warming the glow already in your face.

Manly was winding down as the sun lowered but it was still really pleasant for a stroll along the beach. I seem to be having a few nautical mini-disasters lately though, this time leaving my shoes seemingly safe as I went for a wade, only for the incoming tide to soak them through and make the next few hours uncomfortable walking!

After an ice cream and a beer (as you do), we headed back to the sparkling city lights for piles of pasta at a restaurant on the Rocks, complete with cheesey Italians singing in the courtyard…it was just like being in Florence! Things then went culturally downhill I guess, checking out the considerable diversity of a few bars in and around Oxford Street before finally calling it a night.

Sunday morning arrived bleary eyed, sunnies and powerade equipped as I took the train to Bondi Junction. Here I met up with Caroline and we had some brunch down in Bondi Beach. I thought I would take the photo of myself at Bondi Beach…surely an Englishman has truly made it in life when he has reached this spot! (Please note Mum, I am wearing a T-shirt you gave me for Xmas, aren’t I a good boy?!)

We then walked the semi-famous Bondi to Coogee coastal walk which is in truth really darn nice, taking in more bays and cliffs and neatly trimmed parks. I thought in parts the sand and the water and the greenery was just like St Ives in Cornwall. The English Bondi, St Ives, yeah, I like it!

At Coogee I managed to force down some more ice cream before catching a bus back to the city where I checked out some markets and generally just killed some time before the bus back to Canberra was due to leave. Feeling drained I was ready to leave the hustle and bustle and enjoyed snoozing my way along the Hume Highway and back in sight of the beacon that is the Telstra Tower, objectives fulfilled.

A load of hot air

Dawn is a beautiful time of the day, the only problem is it’s so goddam early on a weekend! The sacrifice of any sort of a lie in was for Canberra’s annual balloon fiesta, taking place all along the lake with activities concentrated around Old Parliament House. 6:15am and there were an unfeasibly large number of people milling about armed with tripods and all sorts of other contraptions, but no signs of any big inflatable things. So I headed down to the lakeside to see the sun come up and add a bit of warmth to proceedings.

Leaving the glare of the lake shores I turned back to Old Parliament House where now things were really happening. It seems the Canburnians (I’ve made that word up) love for fold up camping chairs continues into autumn, I’m just surprised there were hardly any eskies (coolboxes, chillybins, whatever…) littering the place. Anyway, the balloons began to fill with hot air and sedately drifted over the national landmarks.

As one by one they drifted into the air I frantically pedalled across the bridge to the other side of the lake to see colourful round things rising from all over the place…there must have been 50 or so balloons in the sky at one point. Now don’t let anyone tell you Canberra is boring…I mean 50 balloons, wow! Seriously, watching them drift along is strangely mesmerising and seems the perfectly normal thing to do on an autumnal Saturday morning.

April Fall

Now if you actually read all this gibberish I type you may have got the hint that things are a bit more autumnal here, yeah sunny 25C days, I know sounds horrific, especially when there is a “heatwave” in the UK and the Sun is no doubt printing pictures of a couple of students frolicking in the water in Bournemouth. However, there are some clearly visible signs of autumn, as I discovered through a walk of the inner south suburbs.

I guess the colours are not really what you expect to see in Australia, more akin to New England, but I can assure you we are still in Australia and can prove it with hard evidence of a cockatoo in one of the blazing trees.

I crunched my way through empty streets coated with leaves and dodging any acorn storms…the other day one of the trees near work seemed to drop all its acorns in one go (yeah, it is Australia…sedate autumnal tree turns potential killer). I also narrowly missed a horse chestnut which landed a few inches in front of me one morning.

As I walked along Golden Drive in Red Hill, surely named for this time of year, kids were sweeping up the leaves in their large gardens, dogs were being walked and families were cycling the streets in that oh-so-wholesome way. The leafy suburbs eventually gave way to Red Hill Reserve, more the traditional bushland but with views back over the autumnal idyll.

I spent a good hour here, viewing and listening to the wildlife and watching the city change colour as the sun drifted lower in the sky. It was, after quite a busy day and week, the perfect antidote to the stresses of life in the 21st century…leaving me truly engrossed in the environment and not thinking of anything else.


Walking back home, the sky quickly blackened and more Canburnians were queuing outside Manuka Oval for balloons at night. I’m sure this would’ve been a bit of a spectacle but then when you have such spectacle from Mother Nature, who needs balloons?!

A good friday...saturday, sunday and monday

The luxury of a car meant I was up early taking in the stillness of Molonglo Gorge, a pretty spot near the town of Queanbeyan, 10 minutes down the road. The fresh air brought on an appetite so it was a case of finding one of the few shops open and picking up some grub for breakfast. It took me a little by surprise how a lot of things close here on Good Friday. Later in the afternoon I popped into the city, which was more of a ghost town than ever, and picked up Caroline, a Brit from Sydney who was visiting. Well, Canberra was at its most underwhelming and lived up to its Sydneysider reputation for being dead, however, the national attractions were open so we visited the War Memorial for a bit, where it seemed, with nothing much else to do, the rest of Canberra were hanging around.




It was a chilly day but the sun poked through towards the end of the day and made for a beautiful scene upon Mount Ainslie.

Mount Ainslie also gave us a few nice sticks which we collected as part of a secret mission to enhance a flower display Lauren was constructing at home. In fact, one of those sticks came from a tree planted by old Liz Windsor, our beloved leader and John Howard’s sugar mummy. Talking about olde England, in the evening, we had a traditional Friday night English meal of curry, which was nice but not as good as back home. And with a nicely full tummy, it was an early night in preparation for a busy few days…

Hot Cross Bungonia

The morning started with cheesy vegemite on toast with fried eggs in Kingston before heading up the Federal Highway towards Goulburn. The road is pretty unexciting but it does pass the distinct landscape of Lake George, a flat basin where a huge body of water sometimes appears if it is feeling in the mood.

I was hardly enthralled at passing through Goulburn once again but it was only to take a turn off for Bungonia State Conservation Area. This was an area of hills and escarpments cut by the Shoalhaven River, carving deep valleys which culminated in Bungonia Gorge. It is a landscape covering much of the coastal fringe of southern New South Wales but one I always love seeing and seems to offer a distinctly Australian panorama. You can’t beat those trusty old overlooks!

Of course, it provides the perfect place for a classic Aussie bushwalk which, unlike when they go bush in Neighbours, is a perfectly fine and enjoyable experience!

Now, the drive back meant passing through glamorous Goulburn once again, but I achieved my ultimate aim (though nearly missed out until a strategically placed roundabout assisted) and found the Big Merino! Was it worth the wait and anticipation? Well, hardly, but you don’t often get the chance to stand beside a giant concrete sheep do you?! Could do with a lick of paint mind.

Back in Canberra we found a reliable collective of real life non concrete kangaroos at the foot of Red Hill before joining in a BBQ at home.

Easter Funday

I awoke to a trail of mini Easter eggs lining the hallway and an early morning egg hunt organised by Lauren. She was up early hiding little eggs including some outside, a few of which were pinched by the annoying pair of crows who hang around. They didn’t grab the one hiding in my smelly trainers for some reason though.

Full on breakfast and a little dose of chocolate I picked up Caroline and headed off along the Kings Highway to the coast, over the typically cloudy Clyde Mountain and down to Murramarang National Park, just north of Batemans Bay. We parked up at Depot Beach and proceeded to walk along the varied coastline of sand, rocks and pebbles backed by towering white eucalypts.

After a couple of pebbly bays we reached the sandy realms of Pebbly Beach (yeah, does that make sense?!). It’s nothing remarkable for the South Coast…a beautiful sandy beach with lashings of clear water surrounded by rugged bushland!

Pebbly Beach is quite renowned for its wildlife, particular kangaroos and wallabies hanging around on the beach. However, today they were hiding away somewhere, probably put off by the families and hoons who had gathered here for the Easter weekend. We did however see this big lizard, he was probably about 5 feet in length and enjoying all the attention.

Later on in the day we did see some kangaroos, hanging around a picnic ground where some families were playing cricket down in the town of Durras. I don’t know if they were making up the numbers in the field but perhaps England could see if they are eligible and sign them up.

As the day passed on and the sun lowered in the sky we stopped off at Tabourie Beach, which was a beautiful last stop, bathed in golden sunshine, stretches of sand disappearing in the distance. I dipped my feet in the warmish water whilst Caroline got to fly her kite, so all in all a very productive and successful stop.

Another objective was ticked off shortly after as we had an ice cream at a service station / post office / local store / bait place / takeaway / bottle shop all-in-one off the Princes Highway. And then, as the daylight faded it was off over the mountain and across the tablelands back to Canberra. A busy but excellent way to spend Easter Sunday, capped off by a little more chocolate to finish the day.

caught in the A.C.T.

There was a little more Easter fare for Monday breakfast, using up a hot cross bun followed by a little more chocolate! Today was spent within the borders of the Australian Capital Territory, first taking in the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain and the Botanic Gardens in the morning. It was then due south through Tuggeranong and across a winding road to Corin Dam. The dam is set in Namadgi National Park, which makes up the northern extremity of the Australian Alps…it would look quite Alpine with a full dam but I guess it’s about 40% capacity due to the prolonged dry spells. Anyway, it was a nice spot but some of the concrete buildings looked slightly sinister like it might be hiding some secret missile base a la James Bond!

With an active imagination and some James Bond theme music playing in the car, we stopped off a few more miles back down the road at Gibraltar Falls. I wasn’t expecting to see anything to tell the truth, so the fact that there was some water plunging down 40 metres or so was a bonus. You could just picture the Bond girl, who would be Kylie in this special Australian edition, rinsing her smalls in the pools by the waterfall…wishful thinking!

The last stop on this action packed weekend was in nearby Tidbinbilla Nature Park, where we spotted a koala. Well, some American spotted a koala and went stomping through the undergrowth, but that was enough to spark the koala into life and open its eyes. We also saw some roos whilst eating an ice cream by the visitors centre, but you can tell I’ve been in Australia too long when I’ve become a bit complacent about seeing them!

And then the holiday weekend was over. Some pizza in the evening prolonged it a little but that really marked the end of a mini-holiday which took in everything ranging from big concrete farm animals to eating ice creams from servos. A true blue Australian adventure!

Fooling around

My brain seems to be frazzled, I have a bit of writer’s block and can’t think what to write but I know you regular readers will all be expecting an update! So here goes…

Well, Wednesday was a midweek extravaganza visiting three New South Wales country towns for work. The first place was Bungendore, just 30 minutes east of Canberra but another world away in terms of the quality of the coffee! Then north to Goulburn, where there is a big fibre glass Merino sheep, which despite being labelled the “BIG Merino” proved impossible to find…you know, it’s not like some little house or a famous tree stump, it’s a big bloody plastic sheep, and I couldn’t find it! Leaving Goulburn disappointed I headed west to Yass, where there is no big merino but a great big ice cream served by a little lady from the north of England. Yeah, you couldn’t make it up. Oh well, a fun road trip and whilst the scenery was very samey (rolling hills, ghost gums dotted with sheep (small ones)) it was good to get out into the country.

On Thursday night I watched TV. Mainly because the annoying announcers on TV were telling me there was “A life changing event you cannot afford to miss as some American crime solving series that we constantly bombard you with takes the biggest unexpected twist that you never saw coming and your life will never be the same again” all in the style of that movie trailer announcer guy. They say that about everything on TV, you cannot afford to miss anything if they are to believed, even some episode of The Biggest Loser where some overweight Aussies break down because they couldn’t fit 3 Mars Bars in their mouths!

I dragged myself away from the TV on Saturday and went for a stroll around Parliament House with my camera. Now this is a risky business these days, especially as there is an advert from the Australian government warning you that foreigners taking pictures are potential terrorists and you should call the “Dob in hotline”. Luckily though I managed to take a few pictures without having my memory card confiscated.

On Sunday I had brunch in Manuka which, by time it came, was effectively lunch. So, I’m gonna bad mouth Jones The Grocer. Stick to selling overpriced groceries Jonesy! It was a very beautiful day so in the afternoon I took the bike out, again suffering on any inclines and dragging it kicking and screaming up Red Hill. At the top of Red Hill I played with my focal length and aperture.

Coming down Red Hill was much better than going up, freewheeling practically all the way back home…I love that run. Just one necessary stop at the supermarket for some burgers and stuff for a good early evening BBQ before it got dark.

Mmmm, now if only I could post smells of sizzling onions on the blog!