Scott's Canberra Trip

Hmmm, Canberra.

Where do I start? If the world was going to end tomorrow, where would you go? Simple, Canberra, cos its 100yrs behind everywhere else!

Not really. My first thought as I drove in was, Bloemfontein with a bit of Stellenbosch. I am not sure why, but that’s what it felt like. It’s very spread out. The roads were clearly designed and built for the growth of a large city, but at the moment, I don’t think that you could create a traffic jam if you closed all the lanes bar one. The streets are wide. The buildings are only a few stories high, and give the impression of vast space between them. The suburbs are approximately 5 to 10 km’s apart, with loads of bush between them. It is classified as a city, probably because of the area it covers, certainly not for its population of 330 000! Huh??? So where was everyone? The population size compares to GUESS, Bloemfontein. Well that explains that then.


The city is very quiet with loads of outdoor types of activities around the large manmade lakes. The people seem to go to work, then go home. We (a work colleague and I ) tried a different pub every night that we were there; that being from Monday to Friday morning. We did a control system and 2 boardroom presentation installations and finished ahead of schedule, hoping to do some site seeing, but this was not going to be, as H/O heard about this from the salesman, and gave us work for the Thursday and Friday, Bugger... We stayed in a suburb called Tuggeranong. Quite pretty as the pics might show, and very sleepy, even the birds fly slowly. The most popular place in this, and many other suburbs seems to be the local RSL club (retired serviceman leisure club). Drinks and food are cheap. We found one in our suburb on the last night, after travelling around the city for the first 3 looking for a pub with more than 5 people in it (including the staff).


It is also not uncommon to see the odd road kill kangaroo and wombat between suburbs. One of the jokes about Canberra is that if you want weed, fireworks or porn, this is the place to go. Well, the fireworks have been recently banned due to fire hazards, the weed I didn’t try to get, but with some politicians recently admitting to having smoked the stuff, I would not be surprised. And as for the porn... Well, there are a stack of porn shops - and I mean a stack. It basically goes like this: motor dealer, porn shop, motor dealer, porn shop. They also seem to keep this industrious type of industry limited to a few suburbs.


Chris and I had every intention of doing some site seeing, but with literally everything closing at 5 pm, (thanks for the heads up Bill Bryson) we planned to try for the Friday morning, and as you know were foiled. However, I insisted that we go to the monstrous fountain called The Captain Cook Memorial fountain, which shoots a jet of water 150 metres into the air, and would’ve been very impressed had the blooming thing been working. We had seen it the day before from about 12 kms away. And there’s the pic, impressive hey!!!! And that’s it for Canberra. I am due to go back to install a video wall in the near future. Yippee. However, before that is done, I will be paying the small town of Milton a visit to install a video conference system, and repair another.


Oh yes, and on my return, I was summoned to the office and informed that I would be getting a promotion to supervisor of the North of Sydney at the end of April. That said, they now want to talk to me about another position as well. We will just have to wait and see. I really don’t get excited over these things, as I am not a title person, and really enjoy doing the installation and problem solving thing. I will keep you posted.

Enjoy the pics below.

Cheers, Scott

The general type of vegetation before the turnoff to Canberra.

A few km's before Canberra, this plain is huge. Here and there are a few vehicle tracks. Thanks to Neil who pointed out that this is actually Lake George about half an hour out of Canberra. (click on the link for more info - quite interesting)

Sign welcoming to Canberra, So where is it?

Still not there, a large tower like thingy on a mountain in the distant. supposedly this is the city.

Oh, and the first suburb, in the entrance to the CBD... No this is not a sign to go live there.! It spells DICKSON!

Sprawling metropolis

Our apartment in Tuggeranong. They must have got some tired (inebriated) people to name these suburbs - about 25km from CBD

View from the balcony

7.30 am. rush hour, I think.

One of the locals. Even the wildlife seems slower. I am not joking!

Another pic of the apartment.

There were a fair amount of cars around, but hardly any people to be found.

One of the installed rooms. Integration system and LCD

Different view. Apparently this is what I do.

Strange, my colleague found his street name next to where we were staying.

Tuggeranong CBD

Our Apartment block

5.30pm Tuggeranong CBD bustling metropolis again.

On the day we departed we decided to go visit the giant fountain.. Oh and we saw a few cars with people in them.

And the blooming memorial fountain wasn't working. Well it was Friday???

Another look at the lake on the way out. This is in the city centre area.