Tuesday, March 12, 2013

A big birthday

This year is the centenary of Canberra - one hundred years since they decided that Canberra would be in this empty valley in the middle of nowhere, and put down a memorial stone, and made a speech. The actual city took another forty years to get started, but the stone is having a very big birthday. Yesterday there was an event, or rather lots of events, down by the lake (the forty year old completely artificial lake). It was sunny, hot and INSANELY crowded.



Give a Canberran a chance to do something interesting, and they seize it like starving wolves. We should have packed a picnic, found a shady spot, put a picnic rug down and watched the concerts - but we didn't even take a water bottle. I thought we'd just wander around, buy some food and drink, and see what was there. Bad decision - too many people and the queues for sustenance were extraordinary.



So we weren't there for very long, maybe a couple of hours. Some things were cool - enormous inflatable letters spelled "welcome". The boys were being stalked by a giant "w".


Eventually we got an ice-cream, and listened to some music, and saw some strange buskers. But the most fun was taking off our shoes, having a paddle to cool our toasted feet, and skipping stones into the water. Which is a Canberra kind of thing to enjoy...

2 comments:

  1. sounds like you had a great time! i like those kinds of parties. our little town has it's homecoming celebration the third weekend of june and we really enjoy the festivities each year. there's a parade, carnival, and a party in the park with lots of ethnic food and music. just a good old time.

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  2. I'm not one for heat (fortunately, living as I do in Scotland) but I would admit that your blue sky and blue sea and sunshine look a teeeeny bit nicer than our remains-of-snow. It's been sunny here, though.

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