A Trip to the Can

In Australia, they celebrate the Queen's Birthday by giving most people the day off on the 2nd Monday of June. It's kind of like President's Day in the States, except you really do get the day off (unless you work in the service industry). Every year on the Queen's Birthday weekend, there is a special athletics event in Canberra featuring a 20-mile race around Lake Burley Griffin. Race walkers from around Australia come to Canberra for this event every year, and it had been 7 years since Lachlan last participated. He has been looking forward to this formidable race for a long time.

So we left on our journey at about 8:15 on Thursday night, after I got home from teaching. "Grandpa Chris" picked up Jackie for her very own Crib Point holiday a couple hours before that. The drive from Melbourne to Canberra is about 8.5 hours, so we stopped at the halfway point at Aunty Liz's house in Wodonga. We got to her house at about 12:30 in the morning, but she was still awake to welcome us. She even lavished us with chocolates, port wine and good conversation until we were too tired to keep our eyes open any longer. Then the best surprise of all was to sleep in a bed with an electric blanket! I haven't slept so comfortably in ages.

We slept in and decided to go out for breakfast in Albury, which is the next town away. (Wodonga is at the edge of the Victoria State line, and Albury is the first town in New South Wales.) These are very beautiful country towns, close to a few ski resorts. So we went and had brekky at a cafe in Albury and got back on the road to Canberra at about 10:30. The scenery on this drive is nice - rolling hills with scattered trees, grass that looks really thirsty, mountain ranges in the distance. You can drive for hours and the scenery doesn't change one bit. There are hardly any houses, no signs of civilization for tens of miles. It seems like nearly everyone in Australia lives in the coastal cities.

Finally we arrived in Canberra at about 3:00, and found a cafe called "My Cafe" in the trendy suburb of Manuka. We both had delicious focaccia sandwiches and coffees. After that we decided to go and see the War Memorial Museum, but we only had about 45 minutes to look around before it closed. This place was amazing - it had huge displays dedicated to The Great War (WWI), World War II, and post-WWII conflicts. There were actual fighter planes in the WWII section. We didn't get to see very much on this visit, so we decided to try to come back the next day.

Our friends Aaron and Emil had moved to Canberra in January, and they invited us to stay with them in their gorgeous 4-bedroom house. I quickly took them up on their offer! Aaron is a professional oboeist, and I met him during my first Australian gig playing in Les Mis. Emil is a double bassist and also works in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Although they didn't have an electric blanket for us, their house had central heating and I was blessed with another couple nights of toasty warm uninterrupted sleep!

Saturday was our designated "tourist" day. After having brekky at My Cafe, we went back to the War Memorial Museum with Emil (Aaron had to practice for a radio gig the next day!). This time we spent about 3 hours and saw just about everything. I was very moved and impressed by this place, and I don't consider myself a big war supporter. It was cool to get the Australian perspective on these major conflicts, and see how truly similar we all are. When we finished there, we drove around and looked at all the funky foreign embassies and then we went to Parliament House. This place is brilliantly designed, from the aboriginal symbolism to the quiet indoor water fountain that is just loud enough to prevent you from overhearing a conversation between two senators. Emil showed us the House of Representatives and the Senate Room and explained how things work in a parliamentary system. Fascinating stuff.

Canberra is a typical capitol/university town, except that everything closes when the sun goes down! So we spent our evenings in with beautiful home-made dinners and abundant red wine. The city was supposedly built to hold up to 3 million people, but only 300,000 actually live there. If you're like me with no sense of direction, you're bound to get lost here, too. The streets are all circular or curvy. Whoever designed the layout of the streets was vehemently opposed to grids. There are roundabouts in Canberra bigger than a city block. I let Lachlan do most of the driving.

Non-sequitor: Kangaroo means "I don't know" in Aboriginee. Apparently when the white settlers asked the Aboriginees what that big, hopping animal was called, they kept saying "kangaroo," and eventually it stuck.

Now we're up to Sunday morning, the day of the big race! We woke up at 6:00 to get ready for the 8:00 shotgun start. I would be responsible for driving to the feed stations and hand drinks to Lachlan along the track. He did so well - he was really chugging along for the first 10 miles. The last half of the race proved to be more difficult as stomach pains and the like started to kick in. But he still managed to finish, and in an admirable 6th place out of 20. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners were all from the Victorian Race Walking Club - like Lachlan. These guys are really something. Most people couldn't run this distance as fast as they can walk it. I was very proud!

We all had reasons to celebrate on Sunday night: Lachlan's successful race, Aaron's fantastic radio broadcast concert in Sydney, Emil's soccer game win, and my not getting lost while driving to the feed stations. After the race walking awards ceremony at the German Club, Lachlan and I tried to get a bunch of take-away food for all of us. We gave up after driving around for an hour with no luck. So again we were treated to fabulous pasta with home-made carbonara sauce and plenty of red wine. We watched a few episodes of The Family Guy and called it a night.

We left for Melbourne at 10:30 a.m. Monday and got back at about 7:30 p.m. It was a great trip to the Can, but next time I think we'll fly. Quaint Canberra was quite a departure from cosmopolitan Melbourne. It would have been a great place to unwind and rejuvenate, had it not been for a 20-mile race that brought us there. We've tackled Melbourne, Sydney, and Canberra. Next up, Brisbane in 3 weeks. We'll see if the nickname "Bris-Vegas" is well-deserved. At least it will be warm!