2001 Day 10-11 - Canberra

Monday 10 December 2001, Melbourne

Spent my final hours in Melbourne in the city, the weather changed at least four times while I was there. Got back and had missed the Skybus, so had to get a taxi for $40 to the airport. When I got there, the flight had been so delayed that I could have caught the Skybus anyway. Damn. I also failed the security check as I have so many coins, keys, and god knows what else on my person that I had to take them all out and put them in trays then pick them up again. The guards, thankfully, were very sympathetic, treating it as some kind of machine anomaly and they apologised a few times.

The flight to Canberra, a city of barely 300,000 - well, my first ever time on a regional airline. 42 seater, with sheepskin seats. No safety video with a column of female attendants performing in synchronicity what I call the "Emergency Exit Macarena" - there was just one guy reading a transcript of the video. It was noisy as we were close to the motor, and when they told us there'd be turbulence coming into Canberra it would be nice if they had warned us we could pick yesterday's breakfast up on the way down. Eugh.

A friend unexpectedly met me at Canberra and drove me to the city, I hadn't seen him in 4 years so it was a good experience all round :) hopefully I'll be going to a cafe or something with him later in the week. My apartment was beautiful - shame I only got 1 night in it. It had balcony views of parts of the city and the mountains tracing the outline of the city.

I then went for a long walk, during which I discovered the following things:
(1) The average speed on main roads in Canberra is 80km/h, rather than the usual 60.
(2) Drivers in Canberra are completely mental.
(3) The people employed to help us tourists know less about the city than their own brochures contain.
(4) Ignore any signs indicating costs or closing times - "till late" on a cafe means about 7pm and something advertised at one price could be much higher or lower than advertised. Furthermore, the locals seem to know this and regard you as somewhat silly for not guessing/knowing.

I got some beautiful photos too in the Commonwealth Avenue region of the city overlooking Lake Burley Griffin.

Tuesday 11 December 2001, Canberra

I checked out of my room and headed off to Belconnen, about 6km NW of the city, and got completely lost in a huge shopping centre, then caught the wrong bus and found myself on the NSW border at the far north of the metro area rather than in the city (the driver, thankfully, took pity on me and drove me back).

This place is starting to annoy me. Contrary to expectation, most things are expensive here (sometimes up to twice the price of Per/Adl/Mel), and I don't even get a free presentation folder with my photos. Oh well.

Oh and the Snowy Mountains are too inconvenient to do - it seems none of the tourist companies here have realised the potential in tourism in having people stay in Canberra and go to the Snowies. I'd have to stay there 2 nights and pay an absolute bomb. There are no guided tours whatsoever.

I'd better get off this net terminal and go back to Belconnen to pick up my photos actually, because unlike anywhere else I've been in, "Express 1 Hour" means 4.5 hours. I still can't get over the fact they charge $16.60 to develop a roll.

Hopefully my holiday in Canberra will improve from here. It is a nice city, and maybe my annoyance with its daily norms will subside in a day or so :)