Skip to main content

By George, there's water!


As we rounded the crest of the hill we were greeted by an astonishing sight. Lake George had water! Not just a puddle in the centre, but a wide expanse. It's been a long time since we've seen it this full.

We were heading home from Canberra. Earlier in the day we had checked out of the hotel and boarded the free shuttle bus to Floriade. To our delight it was an open top double decker.


Tree branches whipped closely over our heads as we wound our way down to Lake Burley Griffin. The ride was more of a highlight than the annual flower show, the last in its present location by the lake.

The colourful tulips and other flowers were still gorgeous to look at, but Alex had more fun handling reptiles, tossing footballs to score a free Raiders' cap and going down the big slide.








There's so much to see in Canberra and never enough time to do it all, but we wanted to get home before the early Friday knock off.

Last night Alex had read a passage from the Olim's hotel history book in the room detailing its use as a ladies hostel during the Second World War. The Paragon Cafe in Goulburn, where we ate a lunch of hamburgers, dated from that same era.



It was home sweat home back in Sydney with temperatures in the 30's. Collect Kita, unpack bags, wash the car, go grocery shopping and net the leaves off the top of the pool after what was obviously a period of high winds. Definitely home.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Kamioka mines: from silver to supernovas

Part of the Kamioka zinc mining and smelter complex Just after posting about the Kamioka Railway another photo from that 2006 set piqued my interest. Up there in the mountains the landscape looked blasted not just by winter but by something more. It was the kind of lonely place where you would not expect to find major industry, so this sight was quite surprising. Even more surprising is the history associated with this photo. According to some sources mining and refining of ores in Kamioka dates back to 710 AD  and only closed in 2001. Undoubtedly the mine was a major reason for the existence of the Kamioka Railway. Refining of zinc still continues to this day under the parent Mitsui Kenzoku zaibatsu . Gold, silver, copper, zinc and lead were all dug out of the rock here. Unfortunately, the process released cadmium into the river, which, when taken up by the rice that was grown in the river, caused the terrible itai-itai disease  - meaning "It hurts! It hurts". Cadm...

Asagaya and heading home

How can I be happy? I am about to return to a country where the toilets have at most two buttons and no seat warmers. But the tickets are booked and there are no cyclones, typhoons or other disasters standing in our way. It's almost time to go back to my first home. First B wants to do some "local shopping". So we catch the Chuo Line up a few stations to Asagaya, a residential area with a number of Shotengai, covered and uncovered arcades leading away from the station and narrow alleys lined with bars. It is an interesting area for a wander around. We are mainly looking, do some shopping for toothbrushes and sweets from Seiyu, a Wal-Mart owned supermarket/minor department store. We skipped breakfast and lunch is ramen and gyoza at a small restaurant near the entrance to the Pearl Centre shotengai. With the help of a staff member, I manage to purchase tickets at a branch of Lawson to the Ghibli Museum for a friend travelling to Japan in May. There are some...

To Melbourne on the XPT sleeper

Excited by the prospect of reliving the experience of seeing my very first movie and hearing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra perform it I bought tickets to The Empire Strikes Back in Concert in Melbourne back in February. Then I did nothing about actually getting there. Much as I love Melbourne, due to family commitments I didn't want to spend more than the Sunday away. Flights there and back made sense, but  my flight down to Melbourne in late October reiterated the fact that I usually don't enjoy descending into the city. And the concert was in December, a season of summer storms. I really didn't feel like driving the whole route alone and in a hurry, so that left one choice. The train. My very first trip up to Sydney from Melbourne was aboard the luxury Southern Aurora. Or it was supposed to be luxury. I wouldn't know because I spent the whole ride up very sick with the flu lying in the top bunk, unable to stay awake for my whole of night vigil. Now only...