The final leg to Sydney checking on our Governor
Trip Start
Mar 30, 2008
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120
144
Trip End
Mar 31, 2009
Canberra,
Australian Capital Territory,
Australia
Sunday, December 28, 2008
Friday 26th December - No rest for the Wicked, on the road to Melbourne
Clare woke up with a stinking headache and in need of hangover cure of crisps and coke. Showered, breakfasted and camp packed away we headed off towards Melbourne for a long day of driving. On route we realised we were practically passing by The Sbardella's front door so thought it would be worth trying to steal a cuppa on the way. Marco replied to our text with a very generous invitation of a BBQ with a few beers and a bed for the night. As we had planned to stop just outside Melbourne anyway our arms were very twistable, the beer just making it impossible to refuse.
650km later we pulled up on Marco and Emma's drive around 6.30pm. Elly and Jake seemed very excited to see us as did Jackie their Jack Russell. The BBQ was already fired up and Jake took us on a tour showing us one by one his Christmas presents. His fave seemed to be the remote controlled monster truck. It was great to see Emma and Marco and we were made to feel very welcome once again
11 Bird pooh spider - harmless but odd!
. After the BBQ Elly and Jake were treated to a spin on the quad bikes. We both had to have a go too. They were great fun, Marco kept apologising for how slow they were, but as Clare discovered when she let Jake control the throttle they were fast enough indeed! We rounded the night off watching Quantum of Solace James Bond movie, not that we took much in as we kept chatting! Its a shame we couldn't spend longer as Clare and Emma got on really well and Marco and Alex were constantly talking about motorbikes and adventures yet to have. There will definitely have to be a next time! Thanks again guys for taking us in.
Saturday 27th December - Bald again, Melbourne to Canberra
Alex took the opportunity of sorting out his shaggy hair with Marco's clippers and with a little help from the man himself is now the proud owner of a tidy no2 haircut again. We found it a little difficult to pull ourselves away from the Sbardellas homely surroundings. It was great fun playing with the children and chatting to Emma and Marco. We eventually got back on the road around 11h00 and were soon in Melbourne.
We were extremely fortunate to have a small rental car to get us to Sydney from here as everywhere we went all we heard was people being told that nothing was available for them until well into January. We picked up our Thrifty hire car, should have been a 3 door Hyundai Getz, but they gave us a spankers automatic Ford Focus. Back on the other side of town we dropped of the 'bus' before heading to the shopping centre nearby to lunch and check out the mad sales
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. Having spent so long living frugally there wasn't anything we wanted or needed and it was quite strange watching everyone rushing around buying up anything they could get their hands on. PM Rudd, concerned about the global economic downturn, organised some cash hand outs recently for everyone in the country to increase confidence and consumer spending. From what we could see this Australian spending frenzy, could be propping up the economy quite nicely. We wondered if this would be the case back home.?Although we had heard that Canberra could feel quite soul-less, we decided to take the inland option on The Hume Highway to Sydney to find out for ourselves. We drove as long as possible before trying to find a home for the night around 11pm, having earlier shunned the motel prices. We pulled into a layby in the middle of a dual carriageway attracted by other vans already parked there. Not keen on trying to sleep in a Ford Focus we pitched the tent. The first lorry to pass signalled that we hadn't picked a good spot as it felt like its wheels were inches from our heads. So we got up packed up and moved on. Eventually we found a quiet town just off the main highway with a beautiful village green. It was so late at night we just pitched our tent there and settled down to a lovely quiet night.
Sunday 28th December - Canberra, Governors, Senators and Representatives
After an especially early start so that we were not caught on the village green with our tent still up we arrived in Canberra at 8am to find the visitor centre still firmly shut up
13 White boomers Rolf Harris sings about
. While we were waiting for other ideas we took a drive around Canberra to orientate ourselves with the city. It's a really easy place to get around, the city having been purposefully designed for it's role as an administrative capital with an easy layout and lots of circular routes.We headed for the Governor Generals residence to have a look. We were interested to learn that he still has the power, with the Queens authority, to dissolve the Australian Parliament. Something which actually happened once much to the Australians disgust. The house and lawns were very impressive but strictly off limits even to British tax payers like ourselves. So we went for a long walk around the perimeter to the various view points.
After this we popped back over to the visitor centre to get the low down on things to do. We had heard about free tours around Parliament house and were glad to hear that they were running even today on a Sunday. There were loads of other things to do such as the old parliament houses and the mint, but as we were keen to reach Sydney by the afternoon we just went to Parliament House.
It really is an amazing collection of modern buildings. The free tour covered many of the building facts as well as information on the way in which parliament is conducted in Australia. In essence the two houses; the house of representatives and the house of the senate must agree unanimously on the implementation of any changes to law. The senate consists of state senators of equal number for each state plus two from each of the territories
14 Baby white boomer
. The representatives on the other hand are elected one for each 90000 population. Business within is conducted on a model similar to that of the UK model, but in very modern surroundings. We were impressed to learn that every word uttered in the chambers is recorded and printed within 2 hours of being muted; published on the internet within 3 hours! It was a fascinating tour after which we left to have a look at the view of the city from the top of a nearby hill above the national war memorial.Later that day we finally arrived at Anni and Si's in Sydney. It was such a welcoming sight, two friendly faces in a highly developed part of the world, where we could step back into civilisation, a real bed and of course Annis wonderful cooking. This was our first chance to meet our new Godson Jesse Brown too and say hello once again to Flo.
