The Trip to Canberra

April 27
Canberra
Rainy and Cold

The truth is, much of the day was sunny and pleasant. The chilly rain did not move in until after our arrival. But it is cold here -- this is the southern most part of our tour, and it is in the middle of their autumn, so the weather is not surprising at all.

It was sunny in Sydney when we left this morning for Canberra on a Murray's coach. Our driver's name was Arthur, and he turned out to be an excellent driver and guide, even taking us on a side trip for lour first encounter with wild kangaroos.

The daily life of a kangaroo has many points of correspondence to that of the deer in North America. Just like deer, kangaroos feed at dawn and dusk, and spend the middle of the day resting under the shade of a eucalyptus stand. The alpha male will stand guard, keeping some level of alertness while the females and juveniles relax. Kangaroos are also creatures of habit, using the same areas for foraging and resting. So, Arthur could be reasonably certain that there would be a mob on the outskirts of Canberra.

Many of the students got some pretty good photos of the mob. In addition to the alpha male, there were probably three females and as many juveniles -- at least seven in the mob. They were watchful of us but not terribly frightened; some of the students got within 50 feet or so of the alpha male without it fleeing. No doubt many tourist coaches come by this location, and the kangaroos are used to it.

We always go up Mt. Ainslie for the view of Canberra. I usually prepare a few remarks about Canberra at this point: the city layout was done by American architect Walter Burley-Griffin; the line of sight between the War Memorial and the Parliament House is kept unobstructed by design; the city layout is radial, and so on. But Arthur went ahead and spoke about all this and more -- it made an impression on the students that this fellow had that much pride in his country and such a sense of history about it. We gave him a round of applause at the end of the trip.

Canberra is very cold right now. Some snow is forecast to the west, but we're under a cold rain here. Th rooms are comfortable and clean, and we were ushered in pretty swiftly. Their elevator is broken, so we had to carry the bags up a flight, but that's wasn't too bad.

We had the students do their first quiz right away after getting settled in their rooms. They did fine; most of the scores were 7-9 out of 10, which is pretty good. They get so nervous about these things, as though a miss or two on a quiz will ruin their chance for passing. I want my students motivated to do well, but sometimes their obsession for good grades gets in the way of their learning -- some seem to spend their intellectual energy trying to figure out what my colleague and I might ask on a quiz rather than taking the travel experience all in and processing it. And the fact is that the students who get past that behavior of trying to guess what's on teacher's mind are often the ones who do better on quizzes and other course grades.

Since it is still a holiday weekend, the shops closed up early here, so there was even less to do than usual. My colleague and I had dinner at an Irish pub off the main shopping area; some of our students went there as well. My meal of a steak sandwich was okay, but my colleague had fish and chips that looked very good. Then it was back here for a quiet night.

It is now about 6:45 am; I'll upload this in a few minutes. I will run the students through the continental breakfast line at 7:30; then we take our tour of Canberra.