Canberra

Arriving in Canberra was something which had been looked forward to from the time we first started planning the full trip. At the time we had close friends living there, however after the planning stages had begun one of Liz’s closest long-term friends also moved there which added to the desire to spend some time in the nation’s capital. In fact, as it now stands both the boys godmothers are located in Canberra!!

We stayed with the Bruce’s, which worked well for all of us. In the time we were both living in Bunbury they became probably our closest friends. What worked really well was the fact that it didn’t matter which combination of the four of us were around – it always worked. In addition, both our first children were born within a few months of each other with the result that while they moved when the boys were quite young, Max still sees Aidan as his first friend. Now that we both have two kids it means the younger ones have someone to kick around with as well.

Needless to say, arriving into this situation – and on a Friday of all things – resulted in a few drinks and a very late night which slowed the Saturday down considerably (we even managed to get down to one of the local clubs and pick up the West Coast game against Gold Coast, without an alcoholic beverage being imbibed – probably some sort of record for us).

The other person we were looking forward to catching up with – Kerryn – was a little more difficult to tie down as she was away for part of the time we were there, but we still managed to spend quality time with her and her partner which was fantastic.

Being stationary for a few days also worked for me as I had a final assignment due and needed to be able to concentrate on what I was putting together. This was made a lot more difficult due to a lot of the resources I needed still being in WA as I hadn’t finalised the topic when we set off and  had therefore left behind a swathe of information that I ended up needing. Hopefully this doesn’t impact to badly on my final mark!!, but at least it is all now finished and I can concentrate fully on the trip itself. After having struggled with a lack of internet access for much of the trip I have decided to defer next semester as I can’t see this getting any better across the North of the country (I actually expect it will be much worse).

During the trip, as has been mentioned previously, I managed to badly buckle Harry’s front wheel. This opened up a trip to the tip to see what was available from the recycling depot. David was more than happy to come out with us on the off chance he could pick up something else ‘useful’ for their place. The upshot of this was a new bike for Harry as I couldn’t see the sense in coming home with just a wheel when I could bring a whole bike for just $20, especially given the brakes on Harry’s bike hadn’t worked for as long as we could remember.

Following finishing my assignment I took Max for a ride along some of the bike paths. After using Google Maps to estimate the distance it turned out we had covered about 14 km’s, not bad given that our actual destination was only about 3km’s away by road. The intention was to ride out for a while, find somewhere to stop for lunch and then make our way back. This worked perfectly, although my expectations of lunch were completely blown. We ended up at the Woden Shopping Centre, which boasts a reasonable food court. After listening to max talking about how badly he was looking forward to a pie I lead him to all the bakeries I could find to see what appealed only for him to decide that he actually wanted Hungry Jacks. Not necessarily culinary excellence, but it did result in a large amount of food for minimal price.

On the way home Max finally learnt what it meant to be cold. After spending the whole trip in shorts and t-shirt, he had to stop 500 metres from home as his hands were so cold he could no longer hold onto his handlebars. Luckily a cuddle warmed him up enough to get home and for the first time I can remember he voluntary put a jumper on for a few minutes. I am not surprised he was cold as I had jeans and a jacket on and was ruing not putting my beanie and gloves in on the return trip.

One of the major excursions for the week was a trip to the War museum. The previous time we had been in Canberra (about 3 1/2 years ago) we didn’t take the kids as we didn’t feel they were old enough to understand it. This time we decided that Max was and thought we would trial Harry. W got there mid-afternoon as we were going to Kerryn’s that night for dinner and thought a couple of hours would be plenty for the kids. As it turned out this was probably the perfect time for Max at his age, however Harry found it all a bit graphic and tough so he and Liz ended up spending most of the time in the tomb to the Unknown Soldier, which Harry was really taken with.

Max and I on the other hand only made it through part of the displays (as you would expect in that amount of time) with max vacillating between reading every notation on every display and deciding he was bored and had had enough. The interesting thing was that a proclamation of boredom was usually followed with him standing riveted to the very next thing he saw. Hopefully the understanding of the futility of war being juxtaposed with the heroism of many of the people involved will start to become understandable over the next few years – and this visit might assist with that.

The two other significant things from Canberra were:

• A farmer direct store in the Curtin shopping centre. The thing I particularly liked about this (apart from the actual produce) was the fact that every item on sale identified the exact farm it had been sourced from, which I though was fantastic. It is one thing to buy something ‘local’ and another thing altogether to be able to identify exactly where it was produced.
• Not long before we left we went out for pizza with the Bruce’s. When we arrived at the restaurant it included a full set of brewing equipment behind the bar area and I was excited as I have always had a (small) dream of opening up my own brewery restaurant, with a menu revolving around pizza. On this night there was a rapid come down however as the brewery aspect wasn't in operation.

Finally it was time to move on from Canberra, which while sad due to the fact that we were leaving such close friends, who we never seem to manage to catch up with often enough, I must admit I was well and truly ready to keep going. I think this was mainly due tot eh context of the trip which is actually focussed on travelling around experiencing places and things that are completely new and Canberra wasn’t really achieving this. Admittedly I wouldn’t have changes anything though – it was still a fantastic sojourn within the trip and in some ways I think the trip will end up naturally broken into before pre-Canberra and post-Canberra in future years.