It's hot. The sun is shining hot on us as we leave Batemans Bay. We made straight for Pebbly Beach just north of Batemans Bay marvelling at the poor couple who had just arrived to spend a fortnight at the caravan park. Why would anyone book up to stay in a static caravan longer than a couple of days - here?
Pebbly Beach was accessed via an 8 kilometre gravel road which prompted Ian to ask me to read the rental agreement to ensure that we weren't prohibited from such roads. As we arrived at the beach I spotted a kangaroo some 10 metres away and then saw her young joey. Exiting the car we noticed that she was clearly quite tame as she was happy for her and her young to be approached by man and his children. Immediately my camera came into action as I approached and although I maintained by 1 metre distance I didn't reach out to her and I kept me eye on that tail!
We then drove on to Canberra through some barren land with some trees but mostly dry open spaces, arriving in Canberra at lunchtime. I saw half a dozen dead kangaroos by the roadside and an upside down dead wombat.
Canberra is a pleasant city to drive around, many circuit roads, all void of traffic. We had a cheap Chinese lunch, once we had checked into the YHA, and nearly melted walking from and to the car.
We parked up by the National Library, walked along the front of the Old Parliament buildings and the High Court and took some comfort inside the air conditioned National Museum which had some artwork on display. Some of the Aboriginal paintings were wonderful and I particularly enjoyed the works by David Hockney and Claude Monet but as for the rest, it was frankly either crap or disturbing. Back in the sun we walked to the National Archives and then to the Parliament House, both of which had just closed so we ambled on top of the grass covered Parliament House which is somewhat reminiscent of the Teletubbies hillock. Still, you get a good view of the National War Museum from the top.
When we reached the car again 3 hours had passed and we drove around all of the foreign embassy buildings we could identify from our state map which passed a bit of time before dusk and revealed some incredibly boring buildings for some countries which you would expect to be quite elaborate. We then drove around Canberra to guage the city and to search for the FedEx office. Once located we made our way to the city centre to have some dinner.
Dinner, preceded by a fine half pint of Stella, came in the form of a pancake. A savoury pancake with cheese and potato, bacon bits and a salad, followed by ice-cream with roasted almonds and a small pitcher of hot fudge sauce.
Before retiring we completed a couple more circuits of Canberra, mainly to see if anything was lit up at night, of which Parliament House wasn't but the National Library was and because it is a bit confusing and the radial circuits of Canberra easily lead you out of the city.
From Batemans Bay to Canberra we travelled 249 kilometres.
Copyright 2003 Helen Fuller. All rights reserved.