A Capital Day Grommit

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A slow start to our day. John says his throat is getting worse, I suggested it might have something to do with the amount of snoring going on ... !! Never fear, we’re taking the tablets!

While we were eating our bacon sandwiches (John has perfected them), we watched as some of the others set off to walk to the dam. John decided that we really ought to do the same, so off we set. I gave up first (surprise, surprise) on the pretext that I didn’t feel well and I had to plan the day’s journey. John kept going gamely on for the next two hills before he turned round too. Rotten people hadn’t told us they never made it to the dam either!!

We’d had long discussions about continuing up the coastal road or hitting the back roads. I’m delighted to say we went for the back roads, and were soon driving through the most idyllic scenery in the foothills of the SE Forests Nature Reserve. Soon we were climbing up in to the mountains themselves with huge trees and tree ferns and we found ourselves stopping at Pipers Lookout with the most fabulous views back over the valley. Pipers Lookout is named after Fred Piper who was a bus driver who died on 15 August 1947 while shovelling snow from the road. For a moment I thought ‘Snow?! In August?’ It really was fabulously beautiful with all shades of bright green and purple wildflowers similar to aubrietia. There looks to be lots of water around as we were crossing numerous creeks, all with more water than some of the ‘rivers’ we’d crossed earlier in our journeys.

I’m sorry to say that, despite my excitement when I looked at the map, we didn’t pass through the town of Numbugga - I’d been hoping to get a photo of that road sign! And then we were on the plains on the motorway going through to Canberra. I couldn’t believe it - we were at least 2 hours into our drive inland, and we were still passing a steady stream of cars heading for the coast, many of which were towing boats of some description. We’d been told that most Aussies live near the sea, and those that don’t go there on the holidays, but it makes us wonder whether there’s anyone left at home to switch the lights off!

We were rather hoping that this would make finding a campsite in Canberra easier, but we turned up at our No 1 choice to discover the National Folk Festival underway. Now, we may have bitten the bullet and gone in, but they’d closed applications for camping spots a month ago! A visit to tourist information found us a site on the outskirts that could put us up.

After driving round and getting our bearings, we set off for Parliament House and had a jolly good look around to see how the colonials are getting on without our supervision. There was some fantastic art on the walls, which is just as well as we hadn’t been able to go to see the impressionists at the National Art Gallery. There was also the most wonderful tapestry in the Great Hall which is used for state ceremonies.

We then went on to Anzac Parade and the National Monument. Unfortunately, we were too late to go in, but we spent ages admiring the wonderful bronze statues and tributes to the brave men and women. Lest We Forget. (Yes, ok Dani, I got choked up as usual!!)


Back on the campsite, John went off to take advantage of the free wifi to upload yet more blogs (goodness - we’re nearly up to date!). I have spent the past 3.5 hours watching a poor family trying to put up their tent ... and struggling to keep a straight face! John says he thinks that the tent is actually inside out, but he doesn’t like to tell them. Luckily its dark now, so all you can hear is the tap, tap, tap on the tent pegs ... but the wind is getting up so we’re hoping we won’t be watching it fly past later!

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