Greetings from Canberra, which appears to be the definition of a compromise capital, smack in between two more interesting cities in southern Australia.
After a breakfast at the Midnight Hotel, at which some crewmates recounted their desire to fight a kangaroo and their inability to do so at the Canberra Zoo the previous day, I sauntered to sip a Biscoff Latte and write postcards at one of the many coffee shops in the neighborhood.
As the capital, Canberra surely receives many foreign visitors, which can explain the gracious “LOOK THIS WAY” signage painted on the ground at crosswalks to help non-Commonwealth citizens avoid directional disaster.
The morning of our arrival, our instructor pilot did step directly in the path of an automobile after looking left before crossing the street. We had ample time to pull him back before things got too violent, luckily.
I walked to a bookstore in the nearby mall, where I asked the shopkeeper about a good place to see “wildlife” in the area, by which of course I meant kangaroos and whatever other indigenous marsupials might be spotted in such an urban area. She pointed me to Weston Park, which I searched for on Google Maps as “Western Park.” I don’t think there are differences between those two words’ pronunciations in the Australian dialect.
Shortly thereafter, I hopped an Uber to Weston Park and began a tourist-version Steve Irwin expedition searching for kangaroos. After an hour of wandering, a startled roo jumped out from the brush a few meters in front of me before bounding away. Two unleashed dogs chased the roo in hot pursuit, easily 50 meters in just a few seconds as they all sped towards the lake shore. The dogs peeled off and came running back to their owner soon after. It was the most thrilling 5 seconds we had in Canberra.
After a brief lunch near the hotel, four of us hopped in another Uber to go wine tasting at Mount Majura Vineyards, about 20 minutes from downtown. Though I’m unsure of Canberra’s allure apart from its political importance, the small city was a lovely place to spend a quieter day before our departure from Australia.
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