Caboose

I was interested to see Canberra, having lived in another planned capital. From my brief visit I’d say Canberra is working out better than Abuja, although they’ve had more time and resources to do it in Australia.

I stayed at the very nice — but very expensive — YHA Canberra City; it’s very handy for the shopping areas. I spent most of the day at the Australian War Memorial, which has some very impressive displays including a Japanese midget submarine and a Lancaster bomber. They also have excellent audio-visual presentations and little plays connected with exhibits. My only criticism would be that they downplay or ignore any criticism of the conflicts, especially the section on Iraq in the post-1945 galleries.

I’m now in Sydney after a lot of driving. I forgot how big Australia is and how many kilometres I’d have to cover. It doesn’t help that Aussie roads are generally poorly designed and road signs seldom provide the information you need when you need it. They have brand new freeways (110 km/h speed limit) with crossroads on them, 1930’s Autobahn-style! The local roads people seem to have ignored the experience gained in other countries over the last seventy years.

After Tasmania I flew up to Melbourne and spent a few days there before hiring another car and travelling around a bit on my way to Sydney.

Melbourne’s a pretty nice place, although accommodation was mostly full and very expensive because of the tennis. It has good public transport and I liked the atmosphere, especially wandering around Queen Victoria Market. While I was there I visited the Shrine of Remembrance, St Kilda, the Old Melbourne Gaol (which includes a former police station and courthouse) and the Melbourne Museum.

Once I picked up the hire car I quickly escaped Melbourne and headed for the Great Ocean Road. The inland bits aren’t great but along the coast it’s beautiful — but busy — with plenty of laybys and car parks to stop and look at the view. I took some pictures at Loch Ard Gorge, site of one of the shipwrecks this stretch of coast is notorious for. That night I stayed at the wonderful Bimbi Park campsite, it’s all been recently refurbished and I had a nice little 4-bed bunkroom all to myself. The trees at the campsite are home to lots of koalas, which makes for good photos but not necessarily a good night’s sleep; excited koalas make pretty unpleasant screaming and grunting noises in the night.

After the Great Ocean Road it was on to Ballarat, Bendigo and towards Canberra.