Faulkner family in oz: Canberra

Our first trip to the capital was a great success. Some of our Sydney friends raised their eyebrows and asked "Why?", and as we rolled in my first impression was of a concrete jungle. Then the sun came out, and our enthusiastic tour guides helped show us the finer aspects of Canberra.

Ann and Don were fantastic hosts, managing to cope with the 4 of us without breaking a sweat. They were particularly accommodating of our wish to see kangaroos, but despite driving around Canberra in convoy communicating by CB radio, we weren't in luck. The possum on the other hand was practically dancing for the camera every evening.

On paper Canberra is a great place to live and visit, so why are Australians so rude about it? It has all the facilities of a capital city and only 300,000 population. Its a few hours drive from the beach, and from mountains where you can walk and ski. Is this the place the Faulkners have been looking for? Admittedly by Australian standards its quite cold in winter, but when you compare it with Bristol........

We spent an afternoon wandering around the Museum of Australia, which is housed in a controversial modern building. From different angles you can get glimpses of the Guggenheim in Bilbao, a roller coaster, and a skip. They were quite happy to let Carys push her buggy around, and had a nice cafe in the fantastic asymmetrical atrium, so they catered for all of us.

We were in Canberra for Anzac day, which as I learnt by watching the film Gallapoli, was initiated to commemorate the dawn landing in Gallapoli on 25th April 1915, and subsequent slaughter thanks to the Turks machine guns and the willingness of the British Army to sacrifice thousands of men for no good reason. The last veteran died last year at the age of 110, and Anzac day now is much like the British remembrance Sunday. On the way home we bumped into Kevin Rudd and his motorcade heading off to the airport.

The centre of Canberra is arranged around an artificial lake, Lake Burley Griffin, named after the American architect who designed the city. We managed to cycle the 30km of traffic free paths around the lake, towing the kids, and looking at all the landmarks like the National library, National Gallery, National Museum, Australian National University, High Court, and the Parliament House. It really did seem like a civilised city to us, we couldn't think of another capital city anything like it.