Ah, the nation’s beautiful capital. Now a lot of people make jokes at Canberra’s expense and I promise not to be one of them. If you decide from this post that Canberra is to be laughed at or ridiculed, it’s nothing to do with me. I’ve had plenty of day trips to Canberra but this is only the third time I’d stayed overnight and one of the other times was on year 6 camp.
Holly and I raced out of work early, threw things in a bag and then set off for Canberra sometime around 5. Who would’ve thought that it’d be another 4 hours til we arrived? Can only blame that one on Sydney traffic and the wonderful M5. We arrived very tired and hungry at Nicole’s excellent apartment (new and swish place with pool and surveillance cameras in the foyer that you can watch on the tv set in your apartment). After far too much Turkish pizza we walked a couple of blocks to a swanky yet cosy bar in Braddon called Knightsbridge. Good music, good cocktails, kooky lighting, interesting furniture and interesting (looking) people. The cocktails were quite something but we certainly had to wait for them – I think the particular bartender we ended up with was a newbie. Despite the interesting surrounds we were too tired to do much more than go to bed after one cocktail. Gee, isn’t that a sign of getting old? And anyway, we had a big day planned for Saturday.
Questacon. Just saying the name will bring smiles to certain peoples’ faces. We had as much fun as ever but did note that some of the displays were the same as they were in 1992. That’s ok because the cool, new, exciting stuff hits you as soon as you walk in and by the time you’re into the more boring been-there-done-that stuff you’re bored and wanting to head off anyway. Most fun thing was definitely the freefall slide. Holly and Nic decided not to brave it but I donned the suit and then climbed the stairs to where I was to hang from a bar before releasing myself into mid-air for a few metres and then hitting the slippery slide to slow me down. The virtual rollercoaster in the same room also rated highly.
No time to linger because the National Portrait Gallery at Old Parliament House was next on our busy itinerary. The building and its vista are quite beautiful, especially on a sunny crisp winter day. Gallery entry was surprisingly only a $2 donation and once paying it we were greeted by a pack of eager (probably volunteer) guides ready to tell us all about the old Parliament. Us time-poor city folk decided to skip on that and instead waded through the many fantastic rooms of portraits of Australians. Many years, mediums and types of people were represented, my favourites probably being the photography in the wings to the right of the entry. One extra-fantastic thing about the gallery is that the blurbs on the artworks’ subjects are amazingly up to date such as the one of Grant McLennan mentioning his death in May just past. Another favourite was this photograph of painter Jeffrey Smart.
Old Parliament House is definitely good value for money. Not only do you get the wonderful National Portrait Gallery, but you also get to look through Old Parliament House. There’s the red Senate and green House of Reps, the claustrophobically pokey offices of the parliamentary employees, the drab carpet, the wood panelling, the grand (in comparison) Prime Minister’s Suite (still with original furniture – check out the interactive map with pictures) and the blue tiled ensuite bathroom of the Prime Minister which was like something from a bad hotel of many decades past. The highlight of course is the Gough Room which has an old school tv playing loops of the dismissal which you can watch from the comfort of a long ’70s style fabric couch set atop of authentic shagpile carpet. The tv even has a couple of classic ads thrown in for amusement too – “One day you’re gonna get caught, one day you’re gonna get caught, one day you’re gonna get caught with your PANTS DOWN!”.
That was the best $2 we’d spent in a long time.
It was then time to head to high tea at The Hyatt. I’m told this is somewhat of a Canberra institution and so Nicole booked well in advance and secured us cushy highback chairs not far from the buffet. But there was some time to kill before high tea was served so we took ourselves on a little tour of the embassy district. I love looking at embassies. If I lived in Canberra I think I’d get to know them all quite well. The most attractive by far was the Finnish embassy designed by Hirvonen-Huttunen Architects.
But back to high tea. It was ridiculously fantastic. There was smoked salmon, cucumber sandwiches and quiche, but more importantly there were at least ten different cakes and another ten desserts which all went nicely with our glass of champagne and pot of tea. We sadly couldn’t try all of them but we ate until the sugar hurt our mouths and we vowed never to eat again. The only problem with that was the dinner booking we had only a few hours away with a group of Nicole’s Canberra friends.
The Belgium Beer Cafe in Canberra isn’t quite the same as the Sydney version. It looks similar, the menu is similar and the beers are certainly similar. But while the Sydney one is a raucous bar for beer drinking with a restaurant conveniently tucked in the back corner for when you feel like a mussel pot (or eaten from your barstool when they run out of tables), the Canberra version is a tame restaurant with a fantastic bar tacked onto it. After dinner we spent a while sitting at the bar sampling various beers before deciding we should check out the nightlife Kingston had on offer – that only took seven minutes. It’s not that there wasn’t anything on offer, it was just that the bars/clubs reminded me of places I went when I was 18. Either that or they had a cover charge or a line up that no bar could justify. So we found a cab and ended up back at Nicole’s place. This seems to be the thing to do in Canberra. People don’t go out to have random chats with people or run into old friends. People seem to go out to chat with the circle of people they went out with barely lifting their heads to see who else may have arrived. Not that we were wanting to meet people but it just felt pointless paying bar prices when we could do exactly the same thing in Nicole’s loungeroom.
And it was there that a long day wrapped up not long after we started talking politics and religion.
Somehow Sunday crept up on us so we eased into it by sitting on Nicole’s very sunny and sheltered balcony – it got so hot that I stripped down to a singlet. It was time to start thinking about going back to Sydney but before that, on Nicole’s suggestion, we made a quick trip to some markets (in Kingston) that were definitely worth the time – great produce to sample and buy, and great handmade bags and scarfs (which I didn’t have enough cash to invest in).
I feel like that visit to Canberra, while most enjoyable and action packed, will do me for another few years. It’s a beautiful city and there are lots of things to do but something just doesn’t feel right about the place.
