Crammed Canberra
(19th - 22nd November)
I thought I'd best let those of you who care know what we got up to between the two most recent blog posts! Let's start with what happened when we took a little trip to Canberra...
Chris and I were invited to stay with Chris' mum's friend, Gill, who moved out to Australia 30 years ago. Chris and Gill haven't met for just under 30 years, and I of course had never met her. So Chris thought it wise to send her a photo of us so she'd know who to look out for - good job too. When we arrived at the train station we realised neither of us knew who we were looking for! Thankfully Gill recognised us from our photo... at least, we presume it was Gill. She took us home, put us up and showed us the sights for a few days, so if it wasn't her, the people of Canberra are very kind (which I'm sure is true regardless)!
We were made to feel so welcome the minute we arrived. We're told nothing is far in Canberra, so although Gill lives a little out of town it was an ideal base to explore from and Gill was happy to be our chauffeur when she wasn't working. To put Canberra in perspective, it only has one train station, and that serves the long distance trains. The buses from the outer suburbs only appear to go to the next suburb, then you have to get off and change if you want to go to the city. Australia's capital city is definitely designed around people having cars rather than relying on public transport.
It's a very small city, and we spent the whole of our first full day in Old Parliament House (still not sure how, given my dislike of politics!). Whilst there, we also saw the aboriginal camp outside. If I remember rightly this was to represent that this was originally their land and had been around for about 70 years (or since the 70s, one or t'other - that's your homework for tonight kids!). I think part of the time was taken up by the world's most enthusiastic, but ultimately boring, House of Representatives Chamber tour guide. If I thought politics was boring previously, he confirmed it. Anyhow, we ended the Parliamentary tour with a wander around the outside of the new/current Parliament House. Much more interesting in design, from the outside at least - I've yet to see the inside.
The next couple of days were the weekend so Gill and her partner, Daryl, were happy to show us around the sights of Canberra again. I would now encourage everyone who comes to Australia to try and make a small trip to Canberra, although hiring a car would probably be an advantage. The highlights for me were on the outskirts. We headed to Black Mountain Lookout which has a big tower where you can see over the whole of Canberra. We then went to the Botanical Gardens where we saw our first wild, live Kangaroo of this trip. We'd been desperately looking for them whilst on the train (out the window, not literally on the train) but with no success, so to see one in the gardens was quite exciting. Little did I know the best was yet to come, but I'll get to that.
The next day we headed further afield to Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex. It took us about half an hour or more to drive to and was another series of radio telescopes. These ones receive and send radio communication (unlike the one at Parkes, which just receives, I think - check Chris' blog to be sure, or look it up for yourselves - consider it a 2nd piece of homework). It's therefore used in conjuntion with many of NASA's expiditions to keep communication going with the space station and other spacecraft. There was lots of history and information about various tasks astronauts face, such as; how to take a shower, what to wear, what to eat and how to go to the toilet to name just a few... It didn't make me crazy about the idea of becoming an astronaut so I think I'll rule it out as a potential career move when I return.
After we'd had our fill of Space-related fun, we headed to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. This is a protected area with a sort of Safari Park feel to it. By far, this was my highlight in Canberra. Everything is wild, but you can pay a small fee to drive deeper into the area and see various Australian animals in their natural habitat. I was very excited to see an Emu as we approached the park (before we'd even paid), and then we saw lots and lots of Kangaroos as we drove around, some with Joey's in their pouches.
Sadly, Tidbinbilla was pretty much wiped out by bush fires in 2003, but it looked to be recovering quite well now thankfully. The koalas were still scarce, and I only saw one who was currently being introduced. The rest were hiding in the trees somewhere (or so we were told). Still, it did mean we'd now seen emus, kangaroos and a koala. Plus a bunch of exotic birds. The only thing I was missing from my Australian wildlife sightings now was the rare duck-billed platypus. I never thought I'd get to see one of these as I hear they're very shy and only really active in the mornings and evening, and by this time it was the middle of the afternoon. So imagine how chuffed I was when I saw one in one of the lakes! I was soooo impressed!
We only had a long weekend in Canberra, but it was one of my highlights of the trip and it was great to meet Gill, Daryl and Gill's parents who remember Chris from when he was knee-high-to-a-grasshopper (goes to show how long ago they emigrated when you know how tall Chris is now)! Thanks to Gill & co for making us so welcome - I hope you can let us return the favour when you're in the UK next year!
PS, to those of you paying attention to other blog posts, we tried Indian in Canberra too... it was nice, but not much different in style to the UK!
I thought I'd best let those of you who care know what we got up to between the two most recent blog posts! Let's start with what happened when we took a little trip to Canberra...
Chris and I were invited to stay with Chris' mum's friend, Gill, who moved out to Australia 30 years ago. Chris and Gill haven't met for just under 30 years, and I of course had never met her. So Chris thought it wise to send her a photo of us so she'd know who to look out for - good job too. When we arrived at the train station we realised neither of us knew who we were looking for! Thankfully Gill recognised us from our photo... at least, we presume it was Gill. She took us home, put us up and showed us the sights for a few days, so if it wasn't her, the people of Canberra are very kind (which I'm sure is true regardless)!
We were made to feel so welcome the minute we arrived. We're told nothing is far in Canberra, so although Gill lives a little out of town it was an ideal base to explore from and Gill was happy to be our chauffeur when she wasn't working. To put Canberra in perspective, it only has one train station, and that serves the long distance trains. The buses from the outer suburbs only appear to go to the next suburb, then you have to get off and change if you want to go to the city. Australia's capital city is definitely designed around people having cars rather than relying on public transport.
It's a very small city, and we spent the whole of our first full day in Old Parliament House (still not sure how, given my dislike of politics!). Whilst there, we also saw the aboriginal camp outside. If I remember rightly this was to represent that this was originally their land and had been around for about 70 years (or since the 70s, one or t'other - that's your homework for tonight kids!). I think part of the time was taken up by the world's most enthusiastic, but ultimately boring, House of Representatives Chamber tour guide. If I thought politics was boring previously, he confirmed it. Anyhow, we ended the Parliamentary tour with a wander around the outside of the new/current Parliament House. Much more interesting in design, from the outside at least - I've yet to see the inside.
The next couple of days were the weekend so Gill and her partner, Daryl, were happy to show us around the sights of Canberra again. I would now encourage everyone who comes to Australia to try and make a small trip to Canberra, although hiring a car would probably be an advantage. The highlights for me were on the outskirts. We headed to Black Mountain Lookout which has a big tower where you can see over the whole of Canberra. We then went to the Botanical Gardens where we saw our first wild, live Kangaroo of this trip. We'd been desperately looking for them whilst on the train (out the window, not literally on the train) but with no success, so to see one in the gardens was quite exciting. Little did I know the best was yet to come, but I'll get to that.
The next day we headed further afield to Canberra's Deep Space Communication Complex. It took us about half an hour or more to drive to and was another series of radio telescopes. These ones receive and send radio communication (unlike the one at Parkes, which just receives, I think - check Chris' blog to be sure, or look it up for yourselves - consider it a 2nd piece of homework). It's therefore used in conjuntion with many of NASA's expiditions to keep communication going with the space station and other spacecraft. There was lots of history and information about various tasks astronauts face, such as; how to take a shower, what to wear, what to eat and how to go to the toilet to name just a few... It didn't make me crazy about the idea of becoming an astronaut so I think I'll rule it out as a potential career move when I return.
After we'd had our fill of Space-related fun, we headed to Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve. This is a protected area with a sort of Safari Park feel to it. By far, this was my highlight in Canberra. Everything is wild, but you can pay a small fee to drive deeper into the area and see various Australian animals in their natural habitat. I was very excited to see an Emu as we approached the park (before we'd even paid), and then we saw lots and lots of Kangaroos as we drove around, some with Joey's in their pouches.
Sadly, Tidbinbilla was pretty much wiped out by bush fires in 2003, but it looked to be recovering quite well now thankfully. The koalas were still scarce, and I only saw one who was currently being introduced. The rest were hiding in the trees somewhere (or so we were told). Still, it did mean we'd now seen emus, kangaroos and a koala. Plus a bunch of exotic birds. The only thing I was missing from my Australian wildlife sightings now was the rare duck-billed platypus. I never thought I'd get to see one of these as I hear they're very shy and only really active in the mornings and evening, and by this time it was the middle of the afternoon. So imagine how chuffed I was when I saw one in one of the lakes! I was soooo impressed!
We only had a long weekend in Canberra, but it was one of my highlights of the trip and it was great to meet Gill, Daryl and Gill's parents who remember Chris from when he was knee-high-to-a-grasshopper (goes to show how long ago they emigrated when you know how tall Chris is now)! Thanks to Gill & co for making us so welcome - I hope you can let us return the favour when you're in the UK next year!
PS, to those of you paying attention to other blog posts, we tried Indian in Canberra too... it was nice, but not much different in style to the UK!
posted by wobblepop at 6:28 am
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