Canberra Day

Canberra was celebrating 100 years of being the capital of Australia, so we wandered out to take a look. Lake Burley Griffin was supposedly the focal point, and the theme seemed to be words, so I shall let them speak for themselves.

In the children's corner, people made words out of various craft materials and pasted them to boards. You can tell this isn't Britain because the sentiments are all about love, life and the lake, and no one has made up rude words. They're oh-so mature here.

The Captain Cook Memorial Globe, which charts his voyages around the world

Wee Jasper

Out for a weekend's exploring we headed to Wee Jasper where we went for a run in the hills - other than the nearby caves - there's not a lot else to do there! We ran a bit ofthe Hume and Hovell track, which follows the route taken by explorers Hamilton Hume and William Hovell on their expedition to Port Phillip in 1824.



The hills are alive...



They're going the wrong way!

Hume and Hovell (and me in the background)

"I can see the pub from here!"



Beer and wine: you'll feel fine

Howdy Neighbour used to have a saying, "Beer then wine; you'll feel fine. Wine then beer; you'll feel queer." We went for the beer first - Homebrewing with Him Outdoors.

Topaz hops (for dry-hopping)

Sniffing (I don't think it's an official part of the process)

Part of being married to a homebrewer means lots of tastings. I was called upon to compare his stout with a shop-bought one. I took my task very seriously, as you an see.For the record, his stood up well to the taste test.

And then to the wine - we reckon this is the closest we're going to get to the Tour de France this year. Tasty though...

Sydney Sojourn

Some images of a weekend break to Sydney for a friend's birthday.

Sculpture of Lloyd Rees by Lawrence Beck

Lloyd Rees (1895 - 1988) was an Australian landscape painter who twice won the Wynne Prize for his landscape paintings. A plaque on this plinth reads 'A city is the greatest work of art possible'.

The good folk of Sydney wait patiently for the bus

Strelitzia, known as the 'bird of paradise' flower

Danger: Lift Motor Room

Clearly very scary - but beer will help

And then I started playing about with the lighting effects on the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as we caught a ferry back to the North Shore.

The next day a big storm came rolling in and the waves were crashing into the rock pools on our morning run. The kids were enjoying themselves as the life guards kept watch.

Berrima and Beer

On the way back from somewhere to somewhere else, we stopped at Berrima, which purports to be a historic town in the Southern Highlands. It has a number of beautiful sandstone buildings including cafes, churches, and Australia's oldest continually licensed inn.

There is also a gaol and a court house, neither of which are currently in use for their original purpose, although there is an information centre in the court house where we learned that the gaol was only recently closed down - until November 2011 it was an all-female low-to-medium security prison. The prisoners used to landscape all the communal areas of the town and, without them, many residents fear their greens and verges will run to ruin.  

Berrima Court House

We then moved on to the Old Goulburn Brewery, housed in Bradley Grange.The buildings were designed as an integrated industrial complex and there are many panels and displays with intricate details about the architecture and design of the buildings. It is the beer we were interested in, however, and Him Outdoors loved the old barrels and brewing equipment.