Canberra - Mar 3

Summary: those Alps look a little different from the ones in Switzerland, Canberra - the world's nicest office park, roads that take a toll on you, great welcome to M&M's

We left Lakes Entrance fairly early and drove up to Canberra. The Southeast corner of Australia had the densest forest we had seen since the Southwest corner between Margaret River and Albany. A poet might describe the morning light dancing through the trees, but someone driving a car would use terms like “blinding” and “aggravating”. Anyhow, we mercifully turned north at Cann River and found next to no traffic for much of the way into Canberra. The mountains did appear after Cann River, but if they are representative, the Australian Alps should consider the moniker Australian Appalachians. Note: I did not see Mt. K, but I did see a lot of ski rental places, so I was not too far off the path. There is a reason that the Winter Olympics have more Austrians than Australians. I am sure it is a delight to visit in season because it would have lots of Australians, but much like most East Coast (US) skiing, it serves a local audience.

Canberra has a well-deserved reputation for being beautiful. It is a beautiful capital city with enough monuments – modern and classic chiseled stone – to satisfy anyone’s desire to see monuments. We wanted to catch a lake cruise, but just missed one and the next was during nap time. My favorite memorial is below - the War Memorial. There are also many museums (on the lake) and universities. It really is a beautiful city – spacious & park-like. The road net makes sense and is big enough to handle much more traffic than it has. On the down side, it really is colorless. I believe that by hitting it at noon on a work day, I saw it in all its glory as office workers poured out to grab a sandwich. Think of Canberra as the most beautiful office park you’ve ever seen – lakes, sculpture, and a certainty that everything closes by 6pm. It would be the coolest office park in Orange County or Silicon Valley or maybe south of Denver. There's one on a lake in Foster City near Oracle (Twin Dolphin Drive) that resembles Canberra, but without having a government on the lake. Additionally, I would love to send Alex to a university there as I cannot see how he could get into any trouble at all.

In other news, Alex and I have now been to every Australian state and territory besides Tasmania. Not that this fact kept him from throwing a monumental tantrum for about half an hour. This is rare, so I’m trying to figure out what the deal is.

We got into Sydney and found that Sydney has more toll roads than Melbourne. Imagine driving in LA, but discovering that some of the freeways were toll roads which needed to be pre-paid via some mysterious system. There is no rhyme or reason as to which ones are one way and which the other (say “M” roads or single digit numbers have tolls), you just find out when you get there. (The M&M’s tell me I can call a number after the fact and driving on it and “post-pay”, if I can find the number posted on the freeway. If I don’t find it, Hertz will receive and pass along a bill with penalties). Either way, I cut across the Western suburbs using surface streets, which was not ideal.

Still, I am here and I couldn’t be happier. The funny thing is that I arrived a little early, so I hit a coffee shop near their house after a full driving day and demanding screaming from the co-pilot (sorry to call you out, Alex, but that was not the A-game). Guess who walks in? A familiar-looking, smiling, clearly Bulgarian woman (if you’re married to a Bulgarian, you can spot them at a distance). It was Michaela picking up some things for dinner. She welcomed us to Sydney and their beautiful, leafy, green suburb of Cherrybrook. So we headed to the house, hung out for a while, fed the kids, put them to bed, and had a great dinner (traditional Bulgarian fare). This is going to be a great few days here.

Next: Sydney’s Darling Harbour and Wildlife World