Canberra
Amanda works at Mount Stromolo Observatory, just outside Canberra, and invited me to visit for a few days. So off I went, and a few days ended up turning into a week. Some good things (seing as Canberra seems to get a bit of a bad press generally): the countryside round the city is really nice; you wouldn't know that it had mostly been consumed by bush fire a few years ago. There's lots of wildlife; during the week I saw numerous lizards, including Gippsland water dragons and an eastern brown snake (which is apparently deadly when it's in a bad mood) and lots of birds; galahs, cockatoos and numerous crimson rosellas. The Observatory is a really friendly place with very social staff and an excellent coffee machine, and the views from the mountain are superb. Amanda and Robin were very generous and friendly hosts, and they make excellent cocktails; I only aquired two small flesh wounds from the cats. The Australian supercomputer centre is very impressive; lots of big whirring racks and optical fibres. The city itself, though, was a bit of a let-down; the calculated design makes it feel somewhat sterile, and the centre is too spread out for it to feel like a "proper" city. Plus the parliament building is unimpressive from the outside, though it looks good at night. Amanda described it as an easy place to live in and I can see that; the roads are pretty quiet, the centre feels unthreatening at night, there were shops nearby and so forth, but it feels a bit too much as if the position of every tree has been decided by a subcommittee...
Incidentally, the airport is dreadful; there was a small cafe and a newsagent before security and no shops whatsoever after it. On the other hand there was free (though slightly illegitimate) wireless and two people who I'd never met before came up to me and chatted to me; that would never happen in the UK :-)
Incidentally, the airport is dreadful; there was a small cafe and a newsagent before security and no shops whatsoever after it. On the other hand there was free (though slightly illegitimate) wireless and two people who I'd never met before came up to me and chatted to me; that would never happen in the UK :-)