The Democratic Way to CanberraCast your vote to visit Australia's CapitalBy Meg HigaWhen traveling with friends, itineraries are created by majority vote. My friends and I had watched the fireworks of Y2K cascade around earth’s great cities and the spectacle of the 2000 Olympic Games held in Sydney, Australia. There was no question where we would go for our year end vacation. New Year’s Eve was unanimous: to see one of the world’s technological showstoppers aboard a party boat on the harbor. But our options for overnight excursions from Sydney during the rest of our trip was up for open discussion. Some destinations were easily settled. A majority wanted to visit Australia’s capital city, Canberra. I wasn’t entirely convinced. I had heard that Canberra was a ‘sleepy’ city. I had other reservations, too. First of all, the driving--Canberra is 175 miles (280 km) from Sydney. It wasn’t an issue of whether I would be acclimated to driving on the left hand side of the Hume Highway. I wasn’t even concerned that stretches of the highway are buffeted by strong winds. Our rental van was equipped with a roo-guard, and some of the roadkills we saw on the way would have had, I think, the better part of an unfortunate collision. Mostly, I was just anxious that 3 hours in a car would test our tolerance for one another.
Canberra was master planned by a Chicago landscape architect named Walter Griffin and built from nothing in 1913. It was the no-win-no-win solution to the intractable fight between Sydney and Melbourne to claim the title of Capital City for one of the world’s largest countries. This historical fact, to me, didn’t portend an interesting city. One of my friends however pointed out that, colorful histories aside, most of the world’s capital cities tended toward this plan: a deliberate showcase for the country’s nationality and culture to all visitors, both foreign and citizen. This gave me another perspective through which to appreciate the city. On arriving, the first place we visited was the Canberra Visitors’ Centre. It’s designed that way. Where the Federal Highway becomes Northbourne Avenue, we pulled into the lot of the first welcoming set of buildings. I bought an excellent road map of the city published by the Centre and picked out a flier listing the city’s attractions among the racks and stands of brochures. Rather than repeating the same question I’d already heard several times, “So, what’s there to do here in Canberra?”, I just asked the Centre’s staff to pinpoint the location of our hotel on my map. We were soon feeling excited and calmed at the same time by the quiet, tree-lined streets of Australia’s capital city.
From the steps of the Australian War Memorial, we had our first look at the architectural vision of the civic idyll that is Canberra (accented ‘Kan-bra’). It was a grand, unobstructed two mile view. Anzac Parade gradually sloped downward in parallel lanes to the blue spread of Lake Burley Griffin and to its far shore, Capital Hill, whose apex was the Australian flag on a large pyramid flagpole. We drove over the lake on Commonwealth Avenue, to get a closer look at the signature structure, and to also get a sense of the layout of the country’s heart. The streets of Canberra are difficult to navigate; none of it is a straight line grid, and the area around Capital Hill is patterned like a spider’s web. While most of the museums and cultural institutions we had in mind to visit were clustered in the Parkes area at the base of Capital Hill, distances across grassy quadrangles were deceptive. We decided it would take the better part of a morrow to explore. I could tell that everyone was itching to go their own way. So I took the first turn on the return lane of Commonwealth Avenue bridge and pulled around to park the van at the National Capital Exhibition. It was as good a place as any. There was a walkway which crossed over Parkes Avenue, the road parallel to the north shore of the lake, that led to the City Centre area where we could shop, eat, carouse, etc. We set a time, sound-checked our FRS radios, and dispersed.
Following breakfast and check out, we drove to the Parliament House and parked the van in its cavernous underground lot. It is an even more impressive architectural structure up close. Especially appealing about Canberra’s attractions is that many of them are free admission. With three of my friends, I visited, in convenient succession, the National Archives of Australia, the National Library of Australia, and the National Gallery of Australia where two of my friends decided to stay for lunch. Nana and I bought lunch to go at the cafe and went to the shoreline dock to hop on a ferry. It took us a while to get there, but our picnic lunch on tiny little Springbank Island was enjoyable. We waited again for the next ferry to hop across to Acton Peninsula where Canberra’s newest pride, the National Museum of Australia, awaited our visit. By late afternoon, we had had our fill of culture and history, and were back at the fountain moat fronting the Parliament House. My other friends trickled back in pairs, looking a bit exhausted. My plan was to drive up to Red Hill for one last look at the city before hitting the road back to Sydney. It was a beautiful view, overlooking the perfect manicure of Federal Golf Course. We left with the impression that there is really just one big monument, one institution, here. The capital city of Canberra is Australia’s tribute to Australia. Perhaps my friends would be too tired to get on each other’s nerves for the drive back. Perhaps we would exchange entertaining stories of our day at Canberra. I could risk it, drive fast and straight for Sydney. But, it looked like either the quaint towns of Berrima or Bowral, about two thirds of the way, would make a perfect dinner stop. I put it to a vote. Pelican Sheep Station Olims Canberra Hotel Canberra Visitor Centre All photographs by Meg Hig |
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So, I arranged to stop along the way at Pelican Sheep Station, a 2,300 acre working ranch near the town of Goulburn, about two thirds of the way from Sydney to Canberra. For a supplemental operation, owner Phil Sykes has built an impressive attraction for guests, including accommodations for ‘city slickers’. Through fax and several chats with Phil on his cellphone, we arranged for an hour and a half tour of his ranch with demonstrations of sheep shearing and herding dogs. We also accepted the offer of a home cooked lunch in their spacious, rustic Pelican Inn Restaurant, and placed our individual orders for either grilled T-bone steak or chicken breast. The simple lunch, accompanied by salad greens, ‘damper’, fresh fruit and drink was satisfying. We thanked Phil, his wife Donna, and their two young children for their hospitality, and continued on our way feeling fortunate to have had such an educational, entertaining and enjoyable respite for such a small tab. We would be in Canberra within an hour, and everyone was in refreshed spirits.
The first proper place we visited, after checking into our hotel, because it was just a few blocks away, was the Australian War Memorial. It’s one of the most visited attractions in the country. Although the commonwealth ties to Great Britain are still strongly evident, Australia is rightfully proud of her own history and remembered veterans.
I went to stretch out on the grassy lawn. Captain Cook Memorial Jet was an exclamation point to the inconceivably large, man-made marvel that was Canberra’s main landscape feature, Lake Burley Griffin. The panoramic view was like a map of a fictitious city I once drew in my 7th grade civics class come to life. I could also imagine it to be the central complexes of the United Federation of Solar Planets. There was a strong sense of idealism, modernity, and purpose to the landscape. I took the relaxed time to look at the flier of city attractions I had picked up, pleased to see that it directly referred to the Visitors’ Map I had purchased. It was a superb piece of desktop publishing and quite thorough. With the places of interest checked, and a plan for covering them the next day, I got up to go find something to eat.
Canberra’s City Centre, its downtown, was, I-told-you-so, sleepy. There were some people around a pedestrian section of the area near the large Casino Canberra building, but most of the surrounding streets were abandoned. I took a seat at an alfresco restaurant, ordered a schnitzel (basically, chicken fried steak), and asked the waitress why the place was so quiet. She explained that most people go to Sydney to celebrate New Year’s. But there was more to it, I sensed. The Casino, the many closed old town stores, a few ultra-modern department stores, cordoned streets for pedestrians, the numerous public art displays, they all seemed to me a mixed, ongoing attempt at urban redevelopment.
Back at our hotel, some of my friends corroborated this sense of Canberra’s downtown, that it was a concrete works in progress. Curiously, it was in contrasting balance with the organic beauty and suburban charm of the nearby area around our hotel, the Olims Canberra Hotel. I had selected this hotel because it was a national heritage site. We settled right into its character. Our rooms were in the newer wing and furnished not unlike modern hotel rooms. From our rooms’ verandas, encircling a gardenscaped courtyard, my friends and I playfully chatted on our two-way radios. The compliments on my hotel choice were unanimous.
I took an early morning stroll the following morning. One of more impressive things about Canberra, and to a lesser extent all of New South Wales, is the abundance of colorful birds. Sulphur-crested cuckoos were perched on the tall pines of the front lawn of the hotel. They were, till then, just a pet store’s novelty to me, the mascot of pirates and urban cops on TV. To see these large birds in gregarious numbers, and to hear their deafening ‘Quark!’ was heartening. Similarly large, pale rose Galahs, and many multihued Rosellas and Parrots flew overhead or perched in trees like Christmas ornaments.