Having a Capital time!
Trip Start
Feb 04, 2008
1
67
105
Trip End
Jan 19, 2009
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Canberra,
Australian Capital Territory,
Australia
Friday, June 27, 2008
Chugged oh so slowly up the mountains in second gear to catch a peek at the peak, well Dead Horse pass. First (and hopefully only) snow we've seen in Australia! Carried on to Thredbo, a little ski resort town that isn't quite in full flow yet - the ski runs are white but not white enough! Had lunch by a river on our way down the other side of the mountains - both us and Bumblebee were glad to finally be going downhill. As we continued into New South Wales (which really does look like Wales) we passed three lots of speed traps in 10 minutes then got pulled over for a random breath test - welcome to NSW! We had been told they were strict here but crikey - the police are EVERYWHERE! Stopped for supplies at a strange town called Jindabyne then carried on all the way up to Australian Capital Territory - lots of driving today. We phoned and booked a nice cheap campsite for the night - little did we know it was going to be in the middle of a logging forest, along an incredibly bumpy track that went on forever with no signs anywhere to guide us, just hundreds and hundreds of kangaroos bouncing around.
Welcome to...
After driving round various tracks that all looked the same and calling the lady back again for directions (who had to contact the park ranger) we finally found the camping ground - hooray it had a toilet and BBQ but not much else (no wonder it was cheap)! After a freezing (literally) night in the van (I don't think we realised how high up Canberra is!) we defrosted over a cup of tea and headed into the 'capital'. Canberra is about the size of Southampton with about the same sized population! You definitely wouldn't think it was the capital. We had a wander round the city, which was really quiet considering it was a Saturday, and took in some of the sights. We headed to a different campsite for the evening (this time with WiFi hoorah) at the Canberra Motor Village.
On Sunday morning we went to market in the city which was awesome - lots of tasters to test in the food section! We bought some Thai Curry paste from a lasy at the Thai stall who commented on Will's 'Volunteer Thailand' t-shirt. We got chatting and it turned out she was running a charity that helps various children's homes across Thailand. We gave her the details for Dada's so she could get in touch with him to see how she could help. We drove up to a lookout over the city, took some piccies and had lunch then headed to the Institue of Sport where we had tickets to the International Ballroom and Latin Dance Championships (I had managed to convince Will to come with me!) We watched some of the heats in the afternoon then went back in the evening for the finals. I won't bore you with all the details but it was awesome! Juniors as young as 10 were competing and although it felt a bit wrong watching these kids in their tiny outfits dancing the samba with their partners they were amazing. The film Strictly Ballroom came to mind quite a lot though - the commentator was definitely a character (I think he might have been drinking!) and you could see how competitive it was on the floor. Every few minutes couples would bash into each other and shoot evil glares, I couldn't believe how many people were on the floor at once for some of the heats. The highlight for me had to be watching the pasa doble finals, although the jive final was awesome too - you couldn't see their feet for dust!
After an enjoyable evening we drove for an hour or so to another free camping spot, on our way to the coast.
Comments
Dancing
Wow! can't believe that you got Will to go to a latin and ballroom dancing competition. We just completed our first bronze ballroom medal and we are due to do our first bronze latin medal in December. Glad that you two are having a fab time.