Wanderung 33

Canberra Day 3

Karen picked us up around 9:30 and drove us around Canberra to see what had changed since we last visited in Wanderung 26. The suburbs had grown noticeably, but not in the uncontrolled fashion typical in the US. I gathered that the Australian federal government had rather strict control over whether or not certain areas could have homes built on them, and was only very slowly `releasing` small areas for new building. As a result, some of the older neighborhoods were being renovated or even converted into low-rise apartment complexes, which increased the population but kept the availability of detached homes quite low, resulting in what seemed to me to be extremely high property values. Karen being a retired real estate agent and agency owner, was quite plugged in to the nuances of the real estate market, and even knew the background of a lot of the properties we passed on this side of Canberra.

I had wanted to see the National Portrait Gallery, so we stopped off there for a bit. The special exhibit was on movies made in Australia and the actors in them, and I was fascinated that the industry dated back into the 1920s. Besides `Walkabout`, `Crocodile Dundee`, and 'The Man From Snowy River', which even I had seen, there was a whole raft of uniquely Australian movies that I had never even heard of, and some of those sounded very interesting indeed. I will have to see how I might be able to watch some of those old films, but in the age of Netflix there might just be some kind of access to them over the Internet.

The main gallery had paintings of famous Australians, ranging from famous politicians and athletes to far more obscure artists, musicians and poets, and even scientists. I could not discern a theme, but rather as you looked at each new portrait you could get a capsule biography on a small plaque to the lower left of the painting. The portrait of Vladimir Ashkenazy in a hall inside the Sydney Opera House was particularly intriguing as it showed the complex interior formed of beautiful pieces of Australian wood that I had so enjoyed when we visited it with Neville (and took in a concert!) during Wanderung 26. Great memories.

The biographies were neat, tidy, and officially informative, but as it turned out Karen either knew or knew about a decent number of those people, both living and dead. She provided an invaluable commentary about what kind of persons there were, and I felt that her information made them much more like real people for me, because it would include unique, quirky aspects of their lives that would never, of course, make it into the official biography. So that was an unexpectedly rich brush over a truly eclectic lot of notable folks in recent Australian history.

Continuing our tour, we drove around and about until we reached the National Arboretum in the hills just above Canberra to the West, I think. The visitor`s center of the arboretum is situated in such a way as to give great views of Canberra stretched out below, and great views of the Australian Alps to the southwest.

Curiously, the visitor`s center also featured a restaurant with truly fine cuisine. I was a bit surprised as it seemed to be out of town a bit, but they clearly seemed to attract both a normal daily patronage and enough special events business to stay in business. And the meals that we each had were truly memorable, poached salmon in a sauce with vegetables and potatoes in my case, a chicken entree for Monika, and a medium-rare steak for Karen. The food was all locally sourced and cooked to perfection, so we had a very nice meal.

After lunch we wandered through a collection of bonsai trees adjacent to the visitor`s center, which I found fascinating. It was the largest collection of bonsai that I had ever seen in one place, and it was hard not to just stand and stare at each one because each one was in its own way, perfect. My, what patient time and effort had gone into making those miniature trees grow into `Just So` shapes. That is one avocation I know I am not suited for as I am simply too impatient and short-term oriented to put years of careful, artistic work into a plant.

After agreeing to a meeting time for an evening meal (food being important to us), Karen dropped us off for the afternoon and went home to take care of her dogs, who had been suffering from not having their Mum around while she was gadding about with us. I once again took a nap, which surprised me as I thought I had gotten out of that habit while using the CPAP machine. But we also used the time to repack. Since our GPS had apparently permanently and irrevocably died, we made maps of the drive back to Sydney to put on our iPads to use the next day.

That evening we went over to see Karen`s new place, play with Geb and Lilly, her dogs, and have a final dinner with both Jeffie and Karen. The big issue was the gay marriage advisory plebiscite, for which the voting was complete but the counting had yet to be finalized. Jeffie predicted over 60%, which was a good margin, and the next day Neville posted the official tally on his Facebook page, and the plebiscite won by 62% `yes` to 38% `no` votes. That was a resounding victory for equal rights, but it also was non-binding so it remains to be seen how the Australian political system will respond to those results.

But for us, our time in Australia had run out and it was time to fly back home the next day. We reluctantly said good night to Jeffie (very interesting informative person to talk to) and retired fairly early in order to try to get a good night`s sleep for the drive back to Sydney the next morning, followed by the long, long flight back to the USA.