The City of State and Sin

A view down Constitution Avenue
see all photos »

Three and half hours from Sydney, down the Federal Highway is Canberra, the capital of Australia.  The original capital was Melbourne, but the residents of Sydney felt that their city should be the capital as it was larger and the trade and finance centre of the country.  In the end, a suitable place, roughly half way between the two, was chosen.  The aboriginal name of the area was 'Kamberra' though this was anglicised for the new residents.  However, a nearby national park retains the original name.  The layout of the city is rather strange.  The chosen designer, an American architect called Walter Burley Griffin chose a central, political, area with residental areas, like small townships, spread around it. This is evidenced by the prevalence of roundabouts and triangles in the layout of streets and roads.  Rather than locate Canberra in one of the two rival states, New South Wales for Sydney and Victoria for Melbourne, a new state, the Australian Capital Territory was formed.  Each residential area is self-sufficient with its own schools, shopping and community centres, etc and, apparently, many of the residents feel that this makes Canberra a city wihout a soul as there is no real 'centre'.  The official city centre, 'Civic', on the other side of Lake Burley Griffin from the Parliament building is where most of the business headquarters are but there are very few actual residences there.  Despite this reputation, there were many cultural events and concerts taking place around our stay (the Cirque d'Soleil was in town but we weren't able to obtain tickets) and more booked for the near future.  There are also loads of leisure activities available for residents and visitors.

Roberta with the two of us in Canberra
see all photos »

We stayed with Roberta, a friend from our West Berlin and Hong Kong days who is now an Australian citizen and who has lived in Canberra for about 10 years.  It's said that a sign of true friendship is when, no matter how long it's been since you last met (in our case it is almost 25 years), you can carry on from where you left off.  So it was in this case.  It was really good to see her again and our stay was so relaxed and enjoyable.

the centre of the Australian porn industry

A couple of local residents
see all photos »

Apart from the buildings of State and the townships, most of the ACT is National Park and forest with an abundance of scenic bushwalks and wildlife.  Roberta took us to the Tidinbilla Nature Reserve which is rich in indigenous and natural wildlife and plants, where we spent several enjoyable hours walking around.  Several years ago, there was a large bushfire in the area and Tindibilla, like the other nature reserves, was badly affected.  Despite the damage caused, it was amazing to see how the surviving trees and plans are regenerating.  As we walked among the gum trees looking (unsuccessfully) for koalas, you could see the black, burnt, bark peeling back to reveal the starkly contrasting colours of the new bark underneath.

A trip to the Space listening station just outside the city was, for me, extremely interesting.  There are several huge radio telescopes still searching the cosmos for sounds of intelligent life. I did ask a member of staff if they had pointed any of the dishes at Woking in England and he came back with what must have been a stock reply in that they had and listened very carefully, but eventually moved the dish as there were no signs of intelligence there! Budget cuts means that this station is slowly being wound down and is expected to close in the not so distant future but will remain as a museum.  The station also played a part in the communications between the first moon explorers and NASA and, more lately, in the Mars explorations and there are many displays showing either models, or the real thing, of space equipment, including pieces of moon and Martian rock.

Monday evening, it being our last in Camberra, we had our introduction to the famous Australian barbie, though with no prawns.  A very enjoyable time which ended only too soon.

One thing I wasn't aware of was that Canberra, due to the relaxed laws of the ACT, as well as being the centre of the Australian political system, is also the centre of the Australian porn industry.  There is also a very relaxed attitude to the growing of marijuana.  Now, politicians decide how relaxed the laws should be and Canberra is full of politicians, so......  Sorry, I'm not going there!

On Tuesday morning, with a heavy heart as we would have really liked to have seen more of the city,we said goodbye to Roberta and set off in our hire car to our next stop in Albury on the New South Wales/Victoria border.