Vaporous Cities

There's a web-site (http://www.citymayors.com/statistics/largest-cities-density-250.html) which lists cities by population density. For some reason, Canberra appears missing from the list, but I have calculated it at about 400 people per sq km. Thus, 323,000 people sprawl across 814 sq km in a garden city surrounded by extensive parkland and lots of lakes and forests.

That density compares with Mumbai (29,650 persons per sq km) in first place, Beijing (11,500), London (5,500), Tokyo (4,750), and Los Angeles (2,750)! I'll leave it to you imagination what it is like living in so sparsely settled a city.

AS

Musee D'Orsay

One of France's greatest art galleries, the Musee D'Orsay, is closed for renovations and guess where many of the paintings ended up. The answer is the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra where over 100 masterpieces of European art now hang. The artists include Monet, Cezanne, van Gogh, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Seurat, Rousseau, Bonnard and Vuillard, and their works cover the period 1886 to the early 1900s. The exhibition is called: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and beyond: post-impressionism from the Musee D'Orsay.

Today we were privileged to see this exhibition and remind ourselves of the glories we had seen 8 years ago when three of those present, myself included, were on holiday in Paris. It is truly spectacular and our entry tickets were provided by Emily as a Christmas present. The people of Canberra are really lucky to have this event come to them and they have responded in droves. Some 30 of the paintings had audio commentary explaining the background to the works and the intricacies of their composition.

After the tour of the gallery, our lunch was a touch risky. Canberra has an institution called the BrodBurger, named after the owner of a caravan parked with dubious legality alongside Lake Burley Griffin. Forgetting that for a moment, the various kinds of burgers are highly sought after and the queues were lengthy to order them. So we each consumed a BrodBurger while sitting on the grass under shady trees in the lakeside park. The true estimate of their value was given by the large flock of birds including sea gulls and magpies lined alongside awaiting the crumbs from our 'table'!

AS

Bonsai & Penjing

Twice last week Dot and I visited Australia's national collection of Bonsai and Penjing. Most have heard of the former, even if it is in the context of Bonsaiing one's pet, and know what one looks like - see the first picture. Penjing are a Chinese equivalent in which an articial landscape or collection of dwarf trees is constructed. I'd like to take it up as a hobby if I could find the time! I gather that the collection will move to Canberra's new arboretum shortly.

AS

Max Goes Solo

One of the rights of passage for kids is to learn to ride a bike unaided by parents or trainer wheels. Max managed this feat just a day ago riding around the shores of Lake Gininderra adjacent to Belconnen's shopping centre. Belconnen is one of the major suburban locations in Canberra and where Max lives.

A second right of passage is starting school for the first time, now just two days away and a third, I suppose, is catching one's first fish. The first of these explains why we are in Canberra Max-sitting in the interregnum between leaving long day-care and proper schooling.

AS

Australia Day 10

Australia Day commemorates the day on which Governor Phillip sailed into Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) with a cargo of convicts to take possession of this continent on January 26 1788. It is now an orgy of nationalism and self-congratulation and, of course, a public holiday. Many governments, from local to Federal, hold festivities attracting millions of participants and we joined the throng in Commonwealth Park Canberra for fair-ground rides, non-stop performances (for kids, teens, and parents), naturalisation ceremonies (I recall, perhaps incorrectly, that something like 13,000 people from all over the world became Australian citizens), and the finale of obligatory fireworks.

It's a family occasion, and we (Dot and I) joined Beck, Rob and Max, along with Emily and Greg, for the festivities. It was a good day out in hot dry weather, and so multicultural. We sat in the shade of some trees surrounded by peoples of dozens of different ethnic backgrounds eating foods from another dozen different countries. I personally chose Dutch pancakes (Poffertjes) covered in rapidly melting ice-cream; nice!

The final fireworks were held on the banks of Lake Burley Griffin, named after the US architect who designed the city. As the sun finally dived behind the evening clouds, the sky lit up with an impressive human contrived display send up from barges moored on the lake between Commonwealth Park and the National Library in the Parliamentary Triangle. Once again, I was taken by the multicultural character of the event, and we were surrounded by people from all over the world including Africa, Asia and Europe.

AS

Camping!

I haven't been camping for perhaps 20 years, but jumped at the opportunity last weekend to head bush with Max and Rob for some star-gazing, walking swimming and fishing. Rob selected a peaceful spot near the beautifully named Wee Jasper in the foothills of the Snowy Mountains and on the banks of the Goodradigbee River just before in flows into Burrinjuck Dam. The web-site at http://www.weejasperreserves.com.au/ gives some idea of the location, along with the attached pictures.

Max had a wonderful time playing in the fairly fast moving water near our camp-site, fishing in the Goodradigbee (until he lost his lure casting high into nearby trees), playing on swings made of rope tied to the branch of a tree, and cooking supper on a local barbecue.

The camp site was full of holiday-makers there for the long weekend in the run-up to Australia Day (26 January), but the facilities might best be described as basic! The river itself was extremely attractive and not just from the flowing water. Trees overhung the banks almost everywhere and there was astonishing bird-life. In fact, I was awoken at about 5.30 am by a dawn chorus of maybe hundreds of birds including the magnificent sulphur-crested white cockatoo. They chattered loudly to each other for what seemed an eternity.

But, for me, the most wonderful event was to wake in the middle of the night in pitch darkness and cast my eyes skyward. There above was one of the greatest sights humans can experience. The Milky Way arced across the whole sky in a band of light thrown by literally billions of stars - a sight that is barely visible in the northern hemisphere. At Wee Jasper there was no interference from terrestrial light or from water vapour in the atmosphere. Better still, the large Magellanic Cloud also shone brightly - a separate galaxy to our own in the Milky Way cluster. Alas, my camera was incapable of capturing such images or they would be posted here.

AS

Hyde Park

An earlier post talked of Gloucester, Stroud and Stratford on Avon. And late last year we talked about the naming of Armidale after the sea of the Clan McDonald on the Isle of Skye. Australia has a large number of imported names ... and not just from Britain. Another obvious one is Hyde Park, which provides an oasis of green amid the bustle of commercial Sydney. It's much smaller than its namesake, but just as attractive in its own way as the pictures show. Particularly prominent is the avenue of massive fig trees and the fountain at one end.

AS

Can You Match This Bargain?

As we grow older we find that governments throw occasional crumbs in our direction. One option in NSW is cheap travel on public transport, and Dot and I came across the ultimate bargain a few days ago. Living in the countryside, there is little public transport available and we tend to forget that Seniors living in Sydney can readily access abundant cheap trains, buses and ferries (on the harbour).

Anyway, we wanted to visit central Sydney to suss out some events attached to the Festival of Sydney and do a bit of shopping. The fare came to A$2.50 (or 1.43 pounds sterling for my English readers at the current echange rate) and that purchased something like 18 hourse of unlimited travel anywhere in the city, including the 15 km trip rail journey from Rockdale, where we were staying, to the city centre (Circular Quay). After discovering an absence of day-time festival activities (we didn't have a program!), we then decided on a harbour cruise - the 16+ km round trip to Manly, which was embdedded in the price of the original ticket. We could have taken a dozen such ferry trips all for nothing.

If you come to visit us down-under you'd better pack your equivalent of the Seniors card (it has no pension attached) for abundant low-price travel.

AS

Stratford on Avon

My English readers might be surprised to find out that Stratford on Avon lies on the road connecting Gloucester and Stroud. Well, it does in Australia! Dot and I were travelling to Sydney for a few days when we passed through Stratford and I felt compelled to record the event photographically.

It lies on the Bucketts Way just south of the little town of Gloucester (pop. 2,500) in the rural hinterland of the Mid North Coast. The pictures show the bridge across the Avon, the river itself and part of the village beyond, and the sign proclaiming the grand entrance to the village. I doubt that the settlement has more than 200 residents and admit that it doesn't look like the original. Obviously, the whole locality was settled originally by people from Gloucestershire. That said, the location is very beautiful - a mix of mountains, pastures and historic (by Australian standards) townships and villages.

The Bucketts way is named after a striking range of hills just outside of Gloucester called the Bucketts. The look a little like parts of a sand-castle on the beach, though that's not immediately apparent from the attached photo taken across the fairways of the local country club. On taking the photo I was reminded of a geography teacher I had at school fifty years ago. Mr Playll was nicknamed 'Bucket' - for reasons you might care to guess.

AS