Wodonga to Canberra

We got up to a beautiful day in Wodonga and had a hearty home made breakfast. After a nice chat with the motel owner who had immigrated to Australia from England years ago we drove off on the Hume Hwy. towards Canberra. Took a few breaks along the way and lunched in a small village called Jugiong in a lovely park with all the amenities you can think of: Swings for the kids, 3 pools, big trees for shade, picnic tables under roofs and well kept washrooms. Families of all ages came out to enjoy the park and eat or walk their doggies, play with the kids. It was quite amazing for us to see how well equipped these public places are even in small communities far away from the large tourist centers. We also observed that All toilets in Australia that we have seen, whether private or public, have 2 flush buttons, one for number 1, the other for # 2… Very environmentally conscious and much more modern than toilets in North America …

After our relaxing lunch break we got back onto the highway, this time the Barton Hwy. that led us directly into Canberra. We found the “Pavilion Hotel” on Northbourne Avenue in a jiffy thanks to “Oscar”, our I-pad GPS! The reception clerk found our internet reservation from the night before without delay and checked us into our room. We freshened up, rested for a bit and marked on the map that we had picked up from the Visitors’ Info Ctre. before, the points we still wanted to see today. Very fast we realized that Canberra can only be seen by using a car or public transit. The distances between points of interest are WAY TOO LONG, impossible to walk from one to the next. Canberra is a very different city than Sydney or Melbourne. There isn’t a distinctive city center but many areas with monumental government buildings or museums etc. They are all connected by 4 to 6 lane highways or ring roads and huge roundabouts. The whole city takes your breath away just by its sheer size, its massive buildings and no people to be seen. They are all in cars or buses, or in the museums or galleries. The city feels a bit disconnected because of that.

We took a first impressions tour through the city and to most of the sightseeing points which were all closed because it was after 5. The civil servants aren’t in town anyway because of the Christmas holiday and won’t be back till next week, Jan. 2nd. Therefore it all felt a bit empty. Nonetheless we saw the parliament (quite pompous), government house, The National Australian Museum and The National Film Museum, The Telstra Tower and the area with all the international embassies.

Since there isn’t a real downtown with restaurants and cafés in one area we consulted “Oscar” for a place to eat dinner. It came up with the “Dicksen” shopping area close to our hotel (not in walking distance though), where we found a kind of strip mall with lots of different restaurants. We decided on an Indian place called Taj Agra where we had superb food like chicken Lahori, naan bread and Raita (mild yoghurt with cucumbers) to cool down the hot spices. That together with the Aussie beer called VB (Victorian Bitter) made for a very satisfying meal.

Back at our hotel we opened a bottle of red wine and made a plan for our in-depth visit of the points of interest tomorrow.