Canberra & A Lil' Bit More Sydney

Back In Sydney

Welcome back to Sydney. I've had a good week staying in the city centre, it's been better than I thought it would be. The hostel is really nice and I can't hear the main road (George Street) from my 5th storey room, which is a real bonus. I've had a few nights in, a few nights out and it was nice to meet up with both Derek and Bev on different occasions. Dez - I hope the weather in Cairns improves mate!! Ouch.

There's an autumn heat wave going around the south of Australia at the moment (not the east and west coasts though!). Perth is nice and hot and sunny as always, Adelaide is as dry as ever (it hasn't rained for 2 months!) and Sydney is enjoying some great weather right now, high 20s and sunny. Lovely!! What a change it makes to have great weather, as I'd expected from Australia in the summer. To celebrate I did two of the things I never got round to last time - the Sydney Lookout Tower and the Bondi to Coogee coastal walk.

I'm off to Canberra tomorrow to stay with Barbs for 4 nights. Current plans are to see the Brumbies play rugby union on Friday night, go water skiing on Saturday, go to Batemans Bay on Sunday (the weather is great there too!) and then check out what's left of Canberra on Monday while Barbs is at work. Oh, and get drunk regularly and celebrate my birthday of course!! Enjoy St Patrick's Day if you're going out, and I'll be back after Canberra is done. Bye!

Canberra - Visiting Barbs

Not many backpackers visit Canberra, and I'll explain why in the next entry. My visit was a bit different as I was staying with Lynn's friend Barbs who made sure I had plenty to do in the scant amount of time available (three days/four nights).

On Friday night we went straight to Canberra stadium, aka Bruce Stadium (how Australian), and watched the CA Brumbies play a Super 14 rugby union match against the Hurricanes, a team from New Zealand. In time-honoured tradition the home team got well and truly turned over just for me, losing 15 - 33, so the crowd was a bit dead. In fairness the Brumbies were missing a lot of players, including Stirling Mortlock who I've actually heard of. Barbs got the tickets from a friend who used to work for the Brumbies; not only were they free, but they also got us free beers in Captains Lounge. Nice touch, and a good start to the visit.

On Saturday we went down near the coast, about an hour and a half south east of Canberra, to the Nelligen River with Barbs' brother Michael and his girlfriend Sarah. Michael part owns a boat called Legless with another guy who wasn't around that weekend, so I gladly accepted the offer of a shot at waterskiing, which I knew full well I was going to suck at. The only downside to the trip was leaving at 7:30 in the morning to get there...

First of all I tried waterskiing, and failed to master the start four times before hurting my knee (I fell over drunk the week before in Sydney and twisted it a little bit), so my next attempt later in the day was on a wakeboard, basically very similar to a snowboard. I failed at that too, although I did get very close to getting right up on it. Six or seven attempts later I was exhausted and had to take a breather before one final push on the 'biscuit', basically just a little dinghy that gets tied to the boat and then the driver does his best to throw you off it by flooring the boat and driving in a continuous circle until you lose grip and take a flying lesson at over 50km/h. After the early start and the physical pounding I'd taken I well and truly zonked out on the drive back. It was a good experience, I'd love to do it again although preferably with a bit more success.

We went out on Saturday night to see what Canberra had to offer - not a huge amount but it was a fun (and late) night out - and then Sunday was spent recovering and getting ready for the barbie that Barbs was having for my birthday on Monday, which was a great touch. Michael and Sarah came over with the gas barbie and four of Barbs' friends also popped round. Not too late a night - no not because I'm old, but everyone else gets up early to go to work. How easy it is to forget about all that...by the way, thanks for the birthday wishes everyone.

Speaking of work, I hear that HBOS has blocked this site now. How rude. They've probably been monitoring Ballard's web access - he's still far and away the lead logger-on-er. Never mind, I'll plough on regardless and hope that some people can access it at home. A bit of sightseeing in the next update.

Canberra Sightseeing

Canberra, the capital city of Australia, was specifically created in 1913 to end the row between Melbourne and Sydney over who should be the nation's capital. It's a planned city, designed by Walter Burley Griffin, after whom the artificial lake in the city was named. To put Canberra halfway between Melbourne and Sydney would place the capital in New South Wales, something Victoria objected to, so they created a new Territory (not a State) to go with it - the Australian Capital Territory. Jervis Bay was also allocated to the ACT to give it a port - see my previous Roadtrip entry!!

Canberra is spread out over quite a large area, with a population of about 350,000 people. As a result there's a lot of nothingness about and it really doesn't feel like you're driving through a city, let alone the capital of Australia. If I had to liken it to anything it would be Milton Keynes (also a planned town), although Milton Keynes has a good shopping centre and Xscape. Unlike Canberra.

Unsurprisingly the government dominates life in Canberra. Most of the famous attractions are government related - Old Parliament House, New Parliament House, Aboriginal Tent Embassy - and a large part of the population are employed by the government, including Barbs and a few of her friends. The new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, has made himself popular here by moving to Canberra, whereas John Howard previously refused to do so and stayed in Sydney instead.

So, what is there to do here? Well, as previously mentioned you can visit New Parliament House, which is a bit of an eyesore, or Old Parliament House, which is now a museum. If you stroll over the road you'll find the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, a protest by the aborigines against the government which is literally a collection of tents on the grass.

There are lots of National things around in Canberra - the National Museum, the National Gallery, National Zoo & Aquarium, National Botanical Gardens, and so on. The best attraction in Canberra is probably Anzac Street, with the War Memorial at the end. It's just a pity that you can see the steeples of New Parliament House down the far end.

I can't imagine how a backpacker can come here and have a great time. It's vast and spread out, there's not a great deal to do and even that is difficult to do without a car. Public transport here isn't great either which just adds to the problems. Unless you do something like I did then I certainly wouldn't recommend a long visit.

Right, back to Sydney then. Again. Speak soon, and to those of you at HBOS - if you can even see this - sorry to see the share price!! What a joke!!

Illness!!

After I got back to Sydney I started to feel pretty crappy and eventually went to see a doctor, where I was diagnosed with influenza and a bruised rib cartilage. So, not much to say really apart from that the weather has been a bit rubbish and I finished 6th out of 70 in a poker tournament last night. Not bad but unfortunately only the top four got any money. My french roommate won the $370 first prize after flukily knocking me out, but that was okay as he bought lots of drinks afterwards.

I still feel pretty rough but I'm on the mend. Next update from Cairns as I'm meeting back up with Dave and Jamie to begin our East Coast adventure...