Sydney to Canberra

28 April
Canberra
Patches of sun and clouds, some rain, cool

We relocated from Sydney to Canberra today, via coach. Such rides are usually pretty uninteresting, but this time, the trip was unusually entertaining and informative, owing to the efforts of our coach driver, Ron.

Ron is an interesting character. He spent a good portion of his career as a tour guide for coach tours in many places: Europe, Great Britain, the USA, and Asia, and so easily fell into his old habits, becoming our tour guide for the day as well as our driver. Over his microphone, he would tell us jokes and ask questions of the students. An example of one of his jokes:

Ron: "Have you heard of a kangaroo?"
Students: "Yes."
Ron: "A wallaby?"
Students: "Yes."
Ron: "A wallaroo?"
Students: "No."
Ron: "It's a small kangaroo." [n.b.: This is true.]
Ron: "Have you heard of a wasaroo?"
Students: "No."
[some silence]
Ron: "So, ask me what's a wasaroo."
Students: "What's a wasaroo?"
Ron: "It's roadkill." [was - a - 'roo]

Typical Aussie tour guide humor. In the early years of this course, we would get a lot of that from the coach drivers.

But Ron threw in several additional little things for us, too. He took us on a detour off the Hume Highway to some backroads, on which we saw some wild kangaroos, delighting the students who thus far have only seen 'roos in the zoo. We also saw some working dairy farms, and an alpaca ranch -- I suppose it would be called an 'alpaca station' here.

We ate lunch at a McDonalds by the highway, after going through the town of Goulburn. Ron pointed out that the coaches all go on a recently constructed bypass and so miss the town center. Goulburn was the first inland city in Australia, so it's probably worth a look. In future years, maybe we'll find a cafe in the city for lunch. "Macas" is the same whether in the USA or Australia; we don't need to eat there.

When we arrived in Canberra, I have the coach driver take us to an overlook at Mt. Ainslie, a nice overlook that allows one to take in the entire city. Canberra is a planned city. When Australia confederated in 1900, there was a controversy over where the capital would be located, with the rival cities Sydney and Melbourne the chief each vying for the honor. As a compromise, the decision was made to locate the capital in a suitable location halfway between. An international competition was held to find a suitable design for the city, and the winner was Walter Burley-Griffin, an American from Chicago. The city's layout is quite geometrical: three central areas form an equilateral triangle. That triangle is bisected by a line running from the Parliament House to the ANZAC War Memorial. At right angles to that line is a reservoir lake. It is quite picturesque.

Ron knew of a nice way to end the tour. After we left Mt. Ainslie and before we got to the YHA where we would spend the evening, he took us on a side trip to a pavilion nearby Lake Burley-Griffin, where there is an extensive exhibit on the city and the surrounding area. Certainly seems like a good thing to add to the course, so I think we will do that in future years.
The YHA is much nicer this year than last, with a working elevator now -- it was broken down and being repaired last year. They also now have Global Gossip as an internet provider, so that's a good source of stability. Canberra has not changed a lot, though since we are here on Tuesday and Wednesday, there's more to do than there was on the Sunday we were here last year. Still, the town is pretty dead after 6pm. I think most of the students hung out here and socialized.

I should write a little about the swine flu, as I'm sure that anyone reading the blog might be a bit worried for us. I will not lie; we're a little nervous, too. But if we were exposed while enroute, we would have already begun exhibiting symptoms, and no one in the group is doing so. There are a few cases here and there in Australia, but they seem to be catching them early on and isolating them straight away. We'll actually have an opportunity to speak with the embassy staff tomorrow about it. So, I'd advise us all to not get too far ahead of ourselves in our worries over the students. I promise to keep you posted about it.