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Published: October 8th 2006
Sunday we awoke, savored a few toasties, checked out of our hotel and, headed north-east from the Yarra Valley to Canberra. The weird directions we got from our motel stalled our progress but at least led to a stop for coffee (and new directions). The lady slinging coffee appeared not to want to be held liable in case we got lost and mauled by koalas and would only say that we should buy a map. Once we got the map at the local gas station we discovered both that the directions were simple (pointing down the road would’ve done it) and that at least one Yarra Valley gas station sells the magazine “Gang Bang Extreme.” Do you think subscribers of “Gang Bang: The Magazine” or “Gang Bangs For Shut-ins” knew there was an “extreme” publication for their consumption?
A cool 655 kilometers of the Hume Highway connect Melbourne to Canberra making for a long day of driving. The countryside, from the green wine country of the Yarra Valley to long brush covered stretches of grazing land, was stunning the entire way. This stretch of the Hume Highway is smooth and easy on a driver with wide turns and drivers who
religiously follow the “stay left except to pass” rule until you cross from Victoria into New South Wales.
The moment we left Victoria and crossed into New South Wales the road changes immensely. We stopped for gas and groceries and it seemed as if we could not find our way back on to the gorgeous freeway. After following numerous signs and winding through several more heavily trafficked business districts it became clear that we were in fact still on the Hume - a two lane road with stoplights. This continued for some time, frustrating us and, we imagine, pushing the numerous truckers to the brink of madness. The road finally opened up but never regained the silky smooth heavenly feel it had in Victoria.
The sun set when we were about an hour out of Canberra. This was our first opportunity to drive at night in rural Australia (something everyone recommends that you not do because of the volume of nocturnal critters). We made our way into Canberra and eventually found accommodation. Tired from the drive we walked to a nearby stretch of shops and restaurants for dinner at an Italian restaurant.
As we only had one
full day in Canberra we wanted to make the very most of it. As we are Capital One cardholders, however, we had to spend thirty minutes on a payphone trying to sort out some business with them.
Our first stop was a tour of Parliament House. Parliament was not sitting and we found the capital complex surprisingly open and with very few visitors. Our tour included just the two of us and, while informative thanks to the guide, did not take us into any areas we could not have gone on our own. Our tour guide did tell us that a rock star was currently serving in Parliament. Although we acted surprised we wouldn’t have been on the tour if not for the hope that Roger could see Peter Garrett (former lead singer of Midnight Oil). It was very interesting to talk to the tour guide because we realized how many misperceptions she (and many others we meet) have about America and Americans. She told us that Australia has checks and balances and it was clear that she believed (as we think many people we have met do) that anything George Bush wants to do is accepted by Congress. Although we tried to explain to her that very little actually gets accomplished in America because of checks and balances and the separation of the branches we believe it fell on deaf ears.
The building, completed in 1988, is a very modern take on a government house. They did not want it to sit on a hill “removed from the people” so it is very low to the ground and essentially built in to the hillside (grass actually grows on the roof). The one vertical extension of the building is the enormous four post flag pole that dominates the skyline of the city, centering the Australian flag above the center of the building. The center corridor of the building divides the House and Senate and leads from the Prime Minister’s office to the war memorial (one day a year the doors are opened and you can apparently see from the PM’s desk straight through the Parliament House, down the hill, across the river and down the ANZAC street to the memorial).
We walked from the tour down the hill to the Old Parliament House which now houses the National Portrait Gallery. The variety of artwork and individuals represented reveals a lot about Australia’s history and how they imagine themselves. Aboriginal artists, athletes, and figures from the turbulent years of settlement are well accounted for. Current business leaders share walls with colonial figures, busts of great poets with suffragettes, and country music singers and soccer stars mix in with the governors and magistrates. The styles are also varied - the neon pop art portrait of rock and roll pioneer Jimmy O’Keefe is so bright you could land aircraft by the dayglow paint. There are pencil sketches, like the one of a famous homeless person, and photographs alongside the more traditional oil on canvas portraits.
From the portrait gallery we stopped downtown at the massive Canberra Center shopping plaza taking lunch at the food court. After lunch we spent the next three hours at the Australian National Museum. The museum has generated controversy in Australia over its style and layout. The intention is for visitors to be challenged and forced to seek out connection in the exhibits and draw their own conclusions. It is a massive, sprawling building that sits on the river’s edge near downtown and across from Parliament. From the outside you can not make out any obvious location of doorways or windows. There is not a right angle to be seen. The massive entry hall features vast open spaces and artwork hanging tucked away in niches on the ceiling some forty feet over your head. The galleries are loosely labeled and there is no chronology or reason behind what is displayed or where. Modern displays of Australia’s Holden automobile, for example, sits between an archway honoring ANZACs, a giant multi-media map of the continent, and a loud multi-media display of Australian sports moments. Within the Holden exhibit itself the mysteries and non-traditional displays continue, dedicating more space to the life and collection of memorabilia by a Holden junkie than to the man who designed and built the famous Aussie car.
The layout of the museum is certainly appealing to some more than others, and it does indeed challenge the visitor. The biggest frustration was that without any clear organization we ended up cramming an enormous amount of material into our last 45 minutes at the museum, racing against closing time to learn about Aboriginal issues and the history of Australia’s settlement. These two significant and unique aspects of the nation’s history were the most distant exhibits from the entry way, meaning we spent more than two hours stumbling through the more random exhibits before reaching the meat and potatoes exhibits at the end. Although it was organized randomly, we found a lot of the information to be very interesting.
After the long day of sightseeing we retired for dinner at Subway and a movie in our room. It may sound like we are making this up, but we started by trying to watch a pirated copy of Schindler’s List we bought in Saigon. It was uneven and did not play very well so instead we decided to watch the pirated version of Ben Stiller’s farce Zoolander, which was in perfect working order up until the last ten minutes of the film when the disc became unplayable.
The following morning we diddled around with Capital One, again, after they managed to waste the previous day’s call by not reauthorizing the card for use in Australia (we found this out by having the card declined at a gas station). We know we’ve mentioned Capital One a good amount but if you have a choice between using Capital One or paying for something by removing your own organs with a spork and selling them on ebay we might recommend the less painful option of self-mutilation and online bidding.
A full day in Canberra can give a visitor a very good exposure to the capital. It is very apparent that the city is new, well-planned, and growing. Only recently have the number of government jobs been eclipsed by private sector students and workers and there seems to be a booming arts scene. The city is beautifully situated among green hills and a large manmade lake, though the rural beauty can be offset by brush fires that often encroach on the residents. Most people in Australia find Canberra to be incredibly boring and could not understand why we would want to stop there. We wouldn’t want to spent a week there but there is definitely enough to do to fill 1 or 2 days but we believe that it pales in comparison to other Australian cities and attractions.
Despite leaving later than we intended we still made it to Sydney by 3pm for the next leg of our trip north along the east coast of Australia.
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Hank
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Your blogging
You blog like old people screw. Slowly, and infrequently.