It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about what we’ve actually been up to, so I thought I’d take the opportunity as K is driving along Hume Highway to catch up and try to get back into the habit of blogging more frequently. As I was saying to my friend S in Sydney the other evening, I like having a place to share my thoughts and experiences with friends and family (and, heck, anyone who wants to read it). Some people I know would rather send such information by email, but that assumes that all of the recipients actually want to read it. I don’t wish to be so assuming, and so leave the onus with you guys to visit this page (or subscribe to one of its feeds, which is less of a burden), that way you can pick up the story where and when you like (if at all). The blog, of course, also serves as a diary, so I can look back and see what I’ve been up to. If I recall correctly, my memory used to be much better than it is now.

I digress. I want to talk about our time in Canberra, which is where we have been since Friday evening, when we arrived from M’s father’s farm in Orange.

Canberra, for those who don’t know, is in ACT. If last night and the night before are anything to go by, ACT stands for Australia’s Centre of Thunderstorms. We’ve seen some fairly spectacular lightning in our time in Australia’s Capital Territory. I’m sure there are plenty of websites out there which will provide you with the history of how Canberra and the ACT were created in the early part of the twentieth century to move the Federal Capital from Melbourne, so I see no point in getting it wrong here! To me, the City is much like the New Towns back in the UK. No matter how hard they try, architecturally-designed cities always seem to fall short when it comes to providing the character and soul that the older cities of this planet are abundant in. Canberra, sadly, is not the exception.

That’s not to say that there’s nothing to do in Canberra. It is, after all, the Capital City of Australia. It houses parliament, universities and the national film and sound archives. There is also plenty of shopping to be done in the centre, if that’s what you’re after.

Our first evening did not get off to the best of starts. Having found the budget hotel that we had reserved for us at the Tourist Information Centre, we spent the best part of an hour trying to find a car park where we could leave The Beast for the weekend without having to pay by the hour. Eventually we struck gold on London Circuit where we found a car park that was free for the whole weekend (and not too far from the hotel).

Yesterday we walked to Capital Hill, perhaps not by the most direct route, despite making a bee-line for the huge flag flying from the roof of Parliament House. It seems that Canberra isn’t the most pedestrian-friendly city and we ran out of footpath at the base of Capital Hill, to be confronted with more lanes of traffic than we would have hoped for. Parliament House itself was an interesting excursion. It’s free to enter and free tours start every thirty minutes. We were taken into the House of Representatives and The Senate. Every one of the vast rooms that we were taken into was impressive. Unlike the city, itself, the effort that had been spent on creating Parliament House and the amount of thought that had gone into the details has really paid off. I would say that it’s worth visiting Canberra just to experience Parliament House. To get back to the Civic Centre just walk down Capital Hill towards the old Parliament building (you’d think they’d get it right first time, wouldn’t you?) and take a left to get you back to the bridge.

We spent much of the afternoon at ScreenSound Australia watching archive footage from the past 110 years, including scenes from Neighbours, Home and Away and Skippy. Again, this was a free visit, but I would have happily paid to sit in their dark, air-conditioned rooms watching films.

We chose a pizza-place for dinner last night, which claimed to have its own brewery. However, each time I asked for one of their own beers, they brought me a different bottled beer from further afield. Their pizza wasn’t much cop, either, so I wouldn’t recommend visiting it.

Today, we’re heading West again to Mildura. We’ve seen a small Big Thing en route so far and there’ promise of more. Perhaps I’ll post a picture of the Big Dog on the Tuckerbox with these words.

Note: While typing this, we have passed a sign advertising "fixourbloodyroads.com", which I shall check out when I get online. I have put this paragraph in here to remind me!