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Published: February 5th 2004
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Trippy!
talk about some trippy lighting! Checked into the YHA last night and spent 4 hours just walking around before crashing out. Woke up at midnight (some guy had his bed taken and he wanted to know who) but I was so gooooone that I woke up at 8am and we both apologized to each other (I kicked him away).
At home, my computer has crashed but I hope it’s alright back there. Because I got heaps of (incriminating) photos from the Queensland leg of the
Tour of Booty (and somehow I didn’t back them up!), I hope it can be saved. I just don’t want to lose all the photos-they were great times recorded!
They really do look after the people on bikes and buses down here. Sydney could learn a thing or two about Brisbane’s and Canberra’s public transport system. It would be a radical shift but how could they not do it? There are so many bikes sharing the roads with cars and the buses are an integral part of Canberra. Thank God the YHA is right at the bus stop-memories of finding the Brisbane hostel last year crack me up non-stop.
When I was back in school (1998), we
stopped in at Questacon on the way to the snowfields. This place is like an educational theme park. You can learn so much here and it is advisable to spend the whole day here. I can see Robbie absolutely creaming his pants at all the stuff related to engineering and building! Of course it was only an hour’s stay in 1998 and this time around I was glad to spend half the day here. I spent the rest of the day at the Australian War Memorial. This is another place that is somewhere where you can so easily forget time, and end up spending the whole day here. In fact, you could spend centuries in here, learning about the great wars that Australians have fought over the years. Last time I was here (“
National Pornographic”, 2003) we only got up to post World War II, so I decided to continue on and check out the peacekeeping sector, especially with a section dedicated to East Timor.
I’ve been to Canberra in ’89, ’98, ’99, ’01, ’03 and now ’04. Only in 2001 I didn’t make it to the War Memorial. But that night, Steven (fellow dancing lion) showed us Bobby
McGee’s and what a damn great night that was. Doing research before the last time I was down here, some websites seemed to make mention of McGee’s closed down. But a local tour paper told me it was under Rydges-duh! I’ve been past Rydges about 6 times today (I caught 10 buses with my $6 all day pass-couth!)
Walking down to Rydges later in the night reminded me of that great night in 2001. I was in Canberra as the Chinese Dancing School of Sydney was performing at the National Convention Centre and we wanted to celebrate months of rehearsing! I remember Steven had a story to tell about everything and anything. Pointing to the police station, he spent a night in there for unpaid traffic fines! They even drove up to Goulburn just to get him! Through the car park, there it was, painted on the side…”Bobby McGee’s”. But it was as good as closed down. The local tour paper reported that it was open at 8pm on Thursday nights for retro…but not tonight it wasn’t.
“
Fuck! It’s happenin!”
Angie, via MMS (in response to piccy of empty Canberra pub)
Most of the other places I
went to tonight in Canberra City were as good as closed. The Echo Bar (no joke-that is it’s name!) is licensed for 113 people but 112 more would have been nice. 112 ladies wouldn’t have been too much to ask for either?! I went over to the Inn Blue (remember the ID troubles I had here last time?!) and even that was empty. I asked the doorman tonight what was going on and apparently there is a place called ‘Shooters’-$2 drinks until 11.30pm! That is the time when Canberra really comes alive. So I was faced with 2 dilemmas.
1) Stay in the empty bars and get served straight away OR a crowded bar with cheap drinks
2) Catch the last bus home and get some sleep before leaving for Melbourne tomorrow OR hanging around for the party people to come out and get so fucked up and messed up, I’d do all my sleeping while travelling the next day!
The beer won dilemma 1 and I made it to the bus stop in time to settle dilemma 2.
Turns out that my bus driver used to be in the Navy and faced the same dilemma many a time.
But instead of having a few drinks then heading back to the boat to get some sleep, him and his mates would get rolling drunk at the Bourbon and Beefsteak (he almost cried when I told him it was closed down), before reporting for duty at 7am then bunking down! Total trooper!
Personally, I think common sense prevailed because I can’t really think about what I would have done if I did what this bus driver did. Man I gotta give him a name-he’s ultra cool. He can be “Rod the Rollin’ Drunk Ex Navy Bus Driver”.
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