A year had passed since I left hospital, so with strength returning, we decided to make good on a six-year-old promise and visit our good friend Cate, who lives four hours’ drive away in Canberra, our nation’s capital.
We decided to spend a week on a leisurely road trip to Canberra for three days of sightseeing, then head to the Sapphire Coast to commune with mother nature and eventually back home.
The six-lane freeway, transported us to the outskirts of Canberra in record time and without incident. In fact, we surprised Cate by arriving early (whoops!). Cate has a modern house in a new sub-division of northern Canberra. We stayed upstairs, while Cate and her partner Bernie were downstairs, as were the traveling bears. I was feeling tired, so we left the exploration of Canberra till the next morning.
In my experience, when visiting any place, make the decision early as to whether you are just passing through or you’re prepared to spend a few days exploring. In our case, seeing the sights with the locals meant the difference between a grand adventure and a waste of leisure time. By the time we had got up in the morning, Bernie had consulted his laptop and formulated a plan for the day’s assault on the capital. This involved the National Art Gallery, the Old Parliament House and a surprise on the way home.
The first stop was a Portrait Exhibition at the National Art Gallery. The exhibits range in age from Captain Cook (discovered the Australian East Coast in 1770), William Bligh (Mutiny on the Bounty) the first settlers, Chinese Coolies in the mid 1800’s, the Lost Children (both British and Indigenous) in the 1900’s, to modern greats, such as Quentin Bryce (Australia’s first women Governor General), Sir Donald Bradman and Shane Warne (Australian cricket legends from different eras). The entire exhibit does give the viewer a broad overview of Australian history, its people and different cultures.
The second stop of the day was the Old Parliament House and an exhibition of 2017 political cartoons of Australia and the world. Before entering the exhibition, Bernie told us to stand on the top step where in 1974 the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was dismissed from office by the Governor General and made his historic speech about “God may save the Queen, but nothing will save the Governor General”. As for the political cartoons, we took heaps of photos but decided they were far too controversial for this site, so I picked one showing our former Deputy Prime Minister who (in my opinion) the cartoon appears to depict quite accurately, as well as a tongue in cheek version of the Australian Citizenship Test.
I was totally surprised on the way home when Bernie stopped on a non-descript road and told me to walk with him and bring the camera. We were confronted by four Australian Light Horseman from the era of the Boer War and First World War. The sculptures were both awesome and a credit to the sacrifices made by man and beast.
The next morning, we armed ourselves with cameras and headed out to Canberra’s annual tulip festival known as the Floriade. This year’s theme was celebrating the Sixty’s Pop Culture (flower power) and Tasmania’s State Colors (red, white and blue). We picked the opening day to avoid the school holiday crowds but didn’t realize that the majority of tulips were only just starting to bloom. We soldiered on listening to a brass band playing Beatles songs from “Abbey Road” and “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” somewhere in the background.
As we were leaving, we spotted a Tasmanian couple dressed up in red and blue super hero costumes. They were drawing quite a crowd with the majority wanting to take photos of them. This was understandable as they build ‘em big in Tasmania!
On the way back to Cate’s place, Bernie took us on a drive-by tour of other nation’s embassies. Being spring, the gardens were full of color with the azaleas and rhododendrons in full bloom. A few of them look like concrete bunkers, while others reflected their national architecture. All of them were surrounded by metal fencing, security cameras and concrete bollards.
That night, Jadeite started packing while I went in search of the well-hidden bears. Actually, I mentioned out loud that there would be bacon and eggs for breakfast and sure enough, we came down early the next morning to find them already waiting at the dinner table.
Cate and Bernie had been wonderful hosts but now it was time for us to head for the coastal town of Mollymook and our two-story holiday apartment by the sea. It’s good to stay in a place where the only noise in the night is the waves crashing on the shore and being woken by the gradual infusion of light from sunrise.
We explored the Sapphire Coast for three days visiting places that you’ve probably never heard of (or can pronounce), like Narrawallee Lake, Ulladulla Harbor, Racecourse Beach and the town of Milton where you can get the second-best meat pies in the known universe.
Leaving Mollymook was emotionally difficult but we were now on the last leg home. A lunchtime break in Kiama with a couple of photos of the lighthouse and coast to cap off a week away from home. Got to find more leisure time and do this all again – and again – and again.
-- Edited by T-Rex on Thursday 4th of October 2018 09:36:04 PM
-- Edited by T-Rex on Friday 5th of October 2018 08:12:20 PM
