Wrapping Up Canberra

Sitting on the bus at Jolimont all ready to head back to Sydney.  I had a fantastic time in Canberra.  I had been warned before I came that it was not a very good place to visit, and I can totally understand why people say that.  That being said, all the naysayers must not have known anyone in the city… if you come to Canberra you need to be with a local; the city is not conducive to visitors that don’t know the area and don’t have cars.

This morning we left the house around 9:30 and headed over to the Old Bus Depot where they now hold massive markets on Sunday.  On the way we went via the borough where all of the embassies are.  By far the largest and most imposing was the massive compound of the United States – go team. 

After driving around a bit we got to the old depot by the Lake - I wasn’t expecting anything too big, and admit to being a bit blown away by how much there was at the market.  We wandered around and saw all of the delicious looking foods (trying some along the way) as well as heaps of art.

Next door, the old power plant for Canberra has been turned into a massive glass blowing studio and gallery.  We went in and saw an exhibition by a Fulbright scholar who had worked in Canberra for the last year.  Ashley pulled me aside and said that the man the Fulbright student was talking to was the American ambassador. We looked around at the exhibition and then headed to watch the activity in the glass blowing studio.

For lunch we went to Brodburger, which recently moved into a fancy new addition to the glass blowing studio.  Brodburger, a bit of a Canberra institution, started in a little red camper van parked by the side of the Lake.  While it broke many zoning and health codes, and the government wanted it removed, it was also frequented by MPs (Members of Parliament) and various other government officials.  Now that it has the new home everyone is happy.  The popularity makes for quite a long wait, and it took almost an hour to get our food.  By the time our burgers came out Laura and Ed had walked in, and they joined us for our meal (though theirs did not come while Ashley and I were there).  The burger was delicious and well worth the wait.

My brodburger.

We left Laura and Ed and headed across town to the Royal Australian Mint.  It was very nicely set up with exhibition space and views out over the production floor, apparently all new, and Ashley was quite impressed with how things had changed from the last time he was there.  While there I got to mint my own coin.  That might be a bit overstating the three dollars that I had to put in a machine that then activated a press right in front of me.  That being said, I got to watch the coin be made, so I was pretty happy.

The last stop was to get back over to the National Australian Museum to pick up where we had left off.  Ashley had a bit to take care of at Australian National University so we dropped me at the museum to go it alone while we went to campus (which is conveniently adjacent to the museum).  I explored from around 2:30 until just past 4:00.  It was a good museum, not great, and definitely not as good as the New Zealand National Museum.

Before I was to head home, we went by the ‘Chinatown’ area of Canberra and went to a reasonably well known noodle restaurant where I got some delicious laksa.  From there we headed over to Jolimont as it started to rain.  The bus doesn’t seem like it will be as full as the trip down.

I had a fantastic time in Canberra and have now been to half of the states / territories of Australia!