Canberra

Checking into an apartment I immediately spread the contents of panniers around the place and extracted all my laundry! Yes, I washed it all. Even though I wash it every night at a campsite I couldn’t turn down the opportunity to put it into a washing machine and clean it properly. I was staying in the centre of Canberra and around my accommodation were many shops and malls.

There were also many restaurant options. My main shopping interest would be supermarkets. I’m always looking for things you can ‘add water’ to. Carrying some tins is attractive but they’re heavy! When I leave Canberra the adventure will start with towns few and far between and the ones I visit will be small with few shops or facilities. I will miss the luxury of choice.

Canberra has a population of half a million (quite small) and is the seat of the Australian government. It ended up as the capital at the turn of the 20th Century after Sydney and Melbourne couldn’t decide which city should be the capital between them on an ongoing basis! A compromise was Canberra. (Seems a bit like the nonsense of Strasbourg being a part time seat for the EU along with Brussels.) It’s a modern place by virtue of its age and has a garden city layout. It certainly had a calm ambience; a lot less frenetic and diverse in folk than Sydney.

In the morning of my day off I visited the very disappointing and half closed National Museum of Australia. The two positive ‘takeaways’ were that it was free and the toilets were nice. They revisit the story of the indigenous people. Clearly the European colonisers stole, killed and abused the existing First Nations. It’s a disgraceful and maybe an unforgivable story, not least the stealing of children from their parents and attempting to make them behave and grow up like the white population. It’s all on record. Australia now struggles with its history and I’ve heard or read about this history forever. Whether the lot of the indigenous people is positively served by this is something I’m not convinced about. You can only feel guilty for so long before the world moves on. If it hadn’t would we ever have forgiven the Germans and Japanese for their WW2 atrocities and genocide?

(However, I don’t live in Australia. I must have some humility in that my response is based on my background and knowledge.)

Anyway I had an appointment with John Hunt. John was an over confident public school boy who Ealing Technical College had found digs in Southall at the start of his HND in Hotel Management in October 1973. In the same house, lodging with the family Bonicci, was another young public school boy, a long way from Leeds: me! John escaped the awful Bonicci’s and got digs in Ealing; I quickly followed in my 1965 Triumph Herald. Obviously this is a friendship that’s endured and whilst I was interested to see Canberra I’d mainly swung past the city to meet John.

Ever the organised curator of a fine programme we met at the Australian War Memorial, which doubles as a museum to the 103,000 servicemen who’ve died in all the conflicts the government has sent troops to fight in. After a look round we joined their daily Last Post Ceremony. It was powerful and moving.

The bond between the British and Australians (and New Zealanders) is complete over the blood spilt in various conflicts but I never quite appreciated the fight they had against the Japanese. A nation that in WW2 fought with a barbarism that would match ISIS.

(I remember my father talking about a garage in West Yorkshire, in the 1970s, who wouldn’t let Japanese cars in their workshop. The owner had been a POW and was unable to forgive their treatment.)

So after that wonderful experience we wondered back into the centre to find a bar John knew. Sadly he didn’t know where it was though and by the time we climbed onto our stools with some pale ales I was on my way to 23,780 steps for the day. Some rest day!

Dinner was Asian/Chinese and delicious. You may ask how John finds his way to Canberra. his talented wife, Mary, is a grand fromage at the British High Commission looking at development in the Pacific Islands. John works part time, online, with a company in the UK whilst fitting in tennis, walking, cycling, facilities management and preparing itineraries for a number of Brits, like me, who pass through.

Ever the host and casting a parental eye over my welfare he called for a doggy bag and I left with the remains of the meal neither of us could finish/face. This would be real boon the next day.

So John called an Uber and I returned to my apartment to worry about tomorrow and the 76 miles it threatened. After Sydney, the climbing challenges and then Canberra I felt the real Australia was about to present itself.