Canberra (1st & 2nd March)

As my little book (thank you Jenny) tells me… “Canberra was created in 1909 to stem the ego battle between Sydney and Melbourne, who both fancied themselves as a federal capitol. An empty space between the rivals was chosen- a paddock with a ready-made population of 20,000… sheep.”

 That makes Canberra not only Australia’s capitol city, with its own little territory: Australian Capitol Territory (ACT) but also a planned city, which, to my mind makes the layout quite interesting. It’s all straight lines in the centre of the city, with every sight line planned. The war memorial, straight to Parliament House, with the New parliament House on the hill directly behind. That particular line goes straight across Lake Burley Griffith, with the fountain falling exactly on the same line.

While the tour around Australia’s federal parliament building didn’t really interest me, the embassy buildings did. Unlike most cities I know of where the embassies just occupy normal buildings, in Canberra each country has been issued a plot of land to do with what they will. Some remain empty; some have nice, normal if somewhat posh buildings; and some have really gone all out: A traditional long house, complete with stilts, wooden roof, etc; a Thai palace; and the USA… Forte Knox!... walls so high you couldn’t climb over, topped with wire; more security lights and cameras than imaginable; huge barred gates; plain unimaginative building; and of course a no stopping sign outside!

At the opposite end of the road; the War Memorial, was brilliant! It was huge, and I’ve been to a lot of war memorials. 4 floors dedicated to all the wars fought by Australians, from settlement to modern day. WWI and Anzac Day, April 25^th 1915, where Simpson’s donkey played an important role.

I guess I could call this trip particularly cultural. To start with, a trip around Canberra’s ABC studio. That’s like the BBC: National TV and Radio. Even sitting in (very quietly) on a radio show. But my main reason for coming was the ‘Morning Star’ Performance. An aboriginal ‘dream time’ story. One of their sacred spiritual rituals, performed on stage for the first time ever I believe. It was incredible. The performance combined modern dance with the aboriginal ritual of storytelling through movement, sound and music. It was completely captivating and impossible to explain. Just wow!

The gallery where the performance was held also had an incredible array of aboriginal art work. The paintings, like the stories supposedly tell of journeys but in a non-linear way. How you read them though I have no idea. The techniques however was incredible. Thousands upon thousands of tiny dots making up each painting, the colours changing at just the right time somehow. And the bodies and faces, there’s something just weird and uncanny about them. Brilliant though! I wasn’t quite as keen on the techniques being used in modern style paintings. I felt it was much more suited to the muted, earthy colours and traditional subjects, but that’s just my feelings. The sculpted, painted dingoes were great though!

So a trip to the theatre, art gallery and to the museum, admittedly only briefly. I just focused mainly on Aussie history. Some brilliant exhibits; highway men, Ned Kelly and his exploits; original plans and models for Sydney Opera House; and settlement history, how the buildings were built to resemble those in the UK, including a photo comparison of an Aussie church to the one just around the corner from the flat in Aberystwyth. Also they have eisteddfods out here, which they still call eisteddfods, though I’m not sure many people know where the name comes from.

But the best thing, well second to the performance, was that it just happened to be Canberra’s  Enlighten Festival. The whole city, particularly the ‘official’ side was just full of street lighting shows on the Friday night.




Whole sides of buildings projected in spiralling lights and huge pieces of artwork. Mini shows with torches and fairy lights and lanterns on the edges of paths.


It was great, but best of I discovered Canberra was home to one of James Terrell’s Sky Spaces. Turrell being an artist or scenographer who works with light. The disadvantage being  that the full effect of the space is best appreciated at sunrise when it becomes an incredible light show. So up at 5am next morning… so worth it.