Australia with a capital C

Tuesday 10th May

Before we left on this little foray I was always surprised how few people, when asked, knew what the capital of Australia was.

Having been here it turns out that the majority of the Australians couldnt care less either, and practically everyone we had met along the way had never been there.

So on a whim and a minor recommendation from a 15 year old we headed into the capital, which incidently is called Canberra.

The story behind the city is great, they had two major cities along the coast vieing for the prestige of being named the capital (Sydney & Melbourne) but nobody could decide which one the accolade should go to.

So in a moment of sheer genius they decided to build a completely new city somewhere roughly in the middle of the other two but nowhere near the coast to make it interesting for anyone to visit unless forced too.

The end result looks scarily like Washington DC and even has similar sounding street names and buildings reminisent of the giant memorials.

Wow, this is scarily sounding like a proper travel blog and is getting dangerously informative, sorry about that, I had a momentary lapse in concentration!

So anyway, in our normal completely unplanned, unorganised and generally misguided way we arrived into Canberra without anywhere to stay, no idea what there was to do and only a vague idea of how long we would be there for.

As it turns out we could have stayed there a good while as there seemed to be heaps to do but Pauline had got it into her head that she wanted to go to the Campervan, Caravan and Camping supershow in Sydney so we could only stay a few days.

We noticed a flyer for Nasa's deep space exploration centre about 20 kms outside of the capital so we duly headed there with eager anticipation, extremely full bladders and absolutely no petrol (this new van has a very dodgy gauge).

Amazingly we did manage to make it to the complex without any of these factors causing us any major concern, even if there was a final dramatic sprint towards the entrance and the highly coveted amenities within.

The place was amazing, it had 4 supersized dishes in the middle of a cow field eerily listening for Extra Terrestrial farts occuring in the distant atmosphere.

It was truly awe inspiring but at the same time rather bizarre as the entire complex was a tribute to the great feats of engineering and technological accomplishments of the US.

I think that there is something about space centres that instantly transforms you into a big kid, it makes you walk around with your mouth agape at all the really cool stuff that they do and makes you jealous that you cant play with their toys.

Still, after I stopped being grumpy that the nasty man in uniform wouldnt let me climb up onto his giant dish or let me ride on his lunar landing buggy (I am sure there is a euphemism in there somewhere), I took some comfort in chastising Tyler for trying to and telling him not to be so childish.

After our fill of space related trivia and overpriced fizzy drinks we proceeded back to our vehicle to see if we could reach somewhere else before our van broke down.

Literally running on fumes we happened across what is quite possibly the oldest petrol station in the world, with ancient pumps that only registered cents and had "Unleaded" and "Diesel" written on crayon on their heavily rusted white antique bodies.

I got out and stood there like a fool for 5 minutes wondering why the petrol wouldnt come out before I finally got the courage to venture into the ramshackle shop to seek assistance.

What lay inside was quite possibly the oldest petrol station attendant in the world, looking as though he was about to keel over at the mere sight of me coming through the door before insisting on getting up and filling the petrol for me.

Well as it turns out I could have probably walked back to Canberra in the time that it took the guy to walk to the pump but we waited patiently and he finally go there.

He then cranked some metal lever and the whole pump proceeded to shake violently, then, having assumed what I felt was an all-to-smug look on his face, he grabbed the nozzle and chucked it into our tank.

The gauge shot up to $5 in about 10 minutes (it was $1.69 a liter) and the guy then proceeded to stand there like a fool wondering why the petrol wasnt coming out for a further 10 minutes before finally admitting defeat and informing us that he thought it had run out yesterday.

This would have been pretty useful information to have emparted prior to making the arduous journey from his seat to the pumps and he looked a little lost for a moment before adopting a huge grin and suggesting that we could always fill up with his "VX Super Unleaded" at only $2.69 a litre.

Needless to say we paid our $5 thanked him for the wonderful time we had spent together , which we all agreed had been far longer than we had initially anticipated and then proceeded to coast our way back through to Canberra.

The following day we headed out to Questacon, a giant child infested petri dish of scientific mayhem where practically everything is pokable, twistable, jumpable or broken.

It was fantastic fun and it took Pauline and Tyler less than a few minutes to identify the location of the shadow freezing exhibit (similar to the one in Perth on a previous post) and proceed to comandeer it once again in the name of stupidity.

They also had a 60s style phychedelic video maker and for some reason this inspired Tyler to assume the persona of David Brent from "The office" and proceed to perform his legendary dance to a growing crowed of bemused school children.

We also got the opportunity to learn a bit more about the deadly wildlife here in one of the free presentations that were running, this one concentrated on Spiders and once again convinced me that this country is trying to kill all of its inhabitants one by one.

From here we headed down towards Sydney in order to drop into the aformentioned caravan show which definately had a lot of similarities to the aformentioned science museum.

For example, here too everything was pokable, twistable jumpable or broken, however turns out that we werent meant to be poking, twisting or jumping on anything and definately broke more than a couple of things because of this.

The place was absolutely heaving with people handing over vast quantaties of cash for their opportunity to spend countless future days stuck in a metal box listening to their other halves bowel movements and longing to be in a hotel room instead.

Tyler was give a giant balloon by a kindly gentleman and I couldnt help noticing that it was a happy birthday balloon and that he also had a number 5 one in his hand.

What kind of sick, vindictive parents take their 5 year old to a Caravan show to celebrate their 5th birthday?

Probably the same kind of parents that stick their 8 year old son in a campervan for three months and drag him around Australia, but lets hope not!

Anyway we are now into our final week of our campervan adventure and have headed a little north of Sydney where we have once again cheated and booked into a cabin as we are all still ill and will definately commit murder if we spend another night cramped into the shitmobile.