Farewell

All good things must come to an end; A final report on Sydney to follow, but here's Paul and I on our very last day, looking away from the harbour and into the future-and the long, long journey home awaiting ahead of us!

Canberra

Canberra

As Victoria vanished, leaving behind the Snowy Mountains, and with the ‘alpine’ resorts framing our drive, we dropped into NSW and Canberra; what a contrast to the day before.

Modern purpose built wide streets, tree lined roads, the centre dominated by the War Memorial at one end and the Parliament House at the other (in a direct axis), this ‘New’ town was such a stark contrast to small town Australia we’d driven through, with their identikit main streets passing in moments before the road once more disappears into the landscape.

Canberra made another piece of the complex jigsaw of Oz click into place, from the cosmopolitan buzz of Sydney, the mellow medley of Melbourne, the crashing surf and stunning rocks of the Ocean Road, the Englishness of villages and towns, the sense of history embedded not in the culture but in the land itself, and now a man-made town reflecting contemporary Australia.

Our lake side hotel has a lake view, and we were in time for a splendid evening sunrise over the waters of Lake Burley Griffin. Our stroll down to the lakes edge for a floodlit view of the water’s skyline dominated by the Carillon Bells tower looming in the middle and framed by grandiose national buildings over the other.

The next day we walked from top to bottom of the glorious axis, from Parliament House down over the lake to the Australian War Memorial opposite. The walk drops down past the old Parliament House, where the Tent Embassy set up forty years ago still flourishes –a telling reminder of the ever present racial tension and conflict, despite the apparent integration.

This integration is nowhere more on show than in the amazing Art Gallery and National Portrait Gallery, where I was once again absorbed in floors of indigenous art, this time even more fascinating as the artists own life histories were woven into the accompanying story boards.

The National Museum of Australia, coming as it did at the end of my stay, proved invaluable in tying up many loose ends in my sense of this complex country, I’m ashamed of my ignorance in terms of its history, both land and people. Interestingly, despite the presence and celebration of indigenous art in the galleries, the national museum centres on colonialisation and beyond, and although full of  accounts of European immigration and settlement, the country’s history prior to the 1700s centred on the environmental rather than cultural.

Contemporary Canberra’s highlight was Parliament House, topped with an 81 metre flagpole with an Australian flag bigger than a double-decker bus, where, despite the Federal Parliament being in situ, we were free to wander at will in the splendid marble and timber halls, admire the tapestry lined walls and the portraits of the great and the good., and to climb to the roof for panoramic Canberra views.

Yet again I was moved to tears by the closing ceremony at the cenotaph, the lone piper in the setting sun, playing as the doors close on the shrine for the night. Despite the crowds which gather every day, from old to young, there is a consensus of silence, a collective moment of remembrance and reflection.

And finally Paul and I had a meal out! The unadvertised renovations at the hotel were an unexpected alarm call each morning (why can carpenters throughout the world not tell the time, 9am start always translated to 8am in their watches?), but a polite moan to reception prompted a courtesy invite to dine in their restaurant.

Paul made up for his fast food forages by enjoying a massive seafood starter and an enormous steak, and I enjoyed half a goat’s cheese and a salmon steak bigger than the plate-more than made up for the hammering!

(Tis so expensive here though, the 150 dollar voucher we were given just covered this, and three beers, we couldn’t make it stretch to wine-that’s over £100 for a two course meal, and although this was a good restaurant, it was hardly a Michelin starred establishment!)

 View from Parliament House, down past old Parliament House up Anzac Ave (lined with war memorials) to the Shrine, courtesy of Annie's camera and Paul's photography skills!

Ballarat, Bendigo and Beyond

Ballarat, Bendigo and Beyond…

Car duly intact, we set off inland for the long haul back to NSW, and Canberra…the journey home to England is looming ever closer for me, and the weather has suddenly drawn in… a cold front blowing directly from the Antarctic heralds in the  Oz autumn and a reminder of my imminent return to colder climes.

Ballarat at first sight seemed enormous,  with sprawling suburbs and many MacDonalds, but the lake (once we’d found it!) provided welcome relief, just as the sun broke through the clouds. Once a deep flowing blue, the lake been ‘reduced’ by draught and draining to wetlands, so another familiar sight, algae and ducks, rather than black swans and surf!

The historic town centre was oddly enchanting. The ‘gold rush’ town buildings are quirkily different to the ‘usual’ colonial avenues, the legacy of banking, trading, and mine towers, complete with bells, plus miner’s memorials and histories lining the streets evoked a deep historical sensation.

The mixture of odd and new, as everywhere in Australia, continued  into the bizarre here, when we entered the massive MacDonald’s for a recuperative ice cream  and found ourselves sitting inside a renovated museum of the once enormous ‘Bakery’ on Bakery Hill, three floors complete with kilns/ovens/ etc-one of the weirder settings I’ve eaten ice cream in!

Ballarat art gallery proved as good as its reputation, the Australian art, featuring the usual Glover and Streeter showcase works, also showed much of Ballarat as it was during the gold rush, and told the moving history of the Euraka stockade-the original flag on show is movingly torn and bloodied-clearer in art than in words.

Arrived late at Bendigo, to find a very quaint motel, but alas also a very full and crowded one. Our downstairs tiny cubby-hole echoed all night with bumps/crashes/voices…Paul has spoilt me with more upmarket rooms since he came out, and I’m out of practise with the previously acquired hostel ‘deafness’.

On the plus side, the motel was right in the historic centre of Bendigo, another gold rush town with a fascinating history, and another excellent art gallery. The Grace Kelly exhibition is a crowd puller, so I avoided that and spent another absorbing hour in the aboriginal and contemporary sections here, wandering all alone minus a sound musing the works whilst Paul took himself off around the gardens to watch the parrots and bats which abound here.

This town is full of quirky shops, fountains and sculptures, plus the usual botanic gardens, and we wandered the lanes among the requisite churches and spires, mining towers, bells and monuments before embarking on the four hour drive across Victoria to NSW and Albury lake (gave me a chance to catch up on ‘The Archers’ podcast Paul has kindly provided…I reckon I’m only about 6 weeks behind now).

Tonight we’re at Lake Hume, staying in a resort overlooking the water and the ‘mountains’ (genuinely called the Alpine Resorts) behind, and we spent an interesting/adventurous evening clambering around the lakefront, getting lost, and as dark fell, increasingly going round in circles-at one point we could see the hotel so clearly we could have touched it but couldn’t find our way out of the woodland or beach…poor Paul was keen to find some supper, he thought he’d have to swim out, catch a fish and eat it raw…

Even when the scenery seems tame, odd touches like kangaroos jumping past in the rest stop by the highway, cockatoos catching the crumbs, and the diverse greens of the numerous gum and pine trees remind that this isn’t England-its become home to me now so I’ll see 'real' home with new eyes when I return.