In The Army Now!

By the time we had woken this morning, the rain had pretty much run it’s course and the sunshine provided some respite from the bitter cold. We decided to press on north, hoping that eventually the weather would get warmer, but not before we’d taken several more pictures of the view from the campervan.

Even as we drove away, heading back to Cooma, we couldn’t resist taking even more pictures (there are hundreds of them!)

After passing through Cooma, we started the drive to Canberra, the capital of Australia. We finally started to drive through the scenery we’d expected from the Snowy Mountains, with mountain views and hilly terrain at every turn.

After a relatively quick and simple drive we arrived at our campsite in Canberra. Now, how do I describe this nicely? In the eighties, I went with school for a day in the army at Catterick army base. The overriding memories I have of this, other than the squaddies using us all to finely hone their bullying techniques on and doing an assault course in the driving snow, was the antiquated fifties style of the whole base. I can remember thinking “how depressing it must be to be based here”. Well, twenty one years later, my past has finally caught up with me and I’ve been transported lock,stock and barrel to a 1950’s army camp!

We were told to choose our pitch when checking in, and given a little plastic tag to fasten to our water tap. Well, half an hour later we had found a pitch but trying to find any tap, nevermind ours, was like a “Where’s Wally” puzzle. Giving up, we parked temporarily on a long term rental site, filled our water tank (using their tap) with enough water to last a couple of days, and stuck the plastic tag on the electrics!

We’re staying here for two nights. It is completely utilitarian, but has the benefit of the first “true” free internet we’ve come across. I don’t know if Australia has an equivalent of the Advertising Standards Authority in the UK, but if it does it seriously needs to get a grip. Most of the sites we have been on that advertise “free internet” in reality mean that you’ve got a pitiful amount of free internet before you’re locked out – about enough to check your emails on. Well this one is free, not time bound or megabytes bound, and we’ve totally abused it, downloading some new music for our ipods, some stuff to watch from the TV, and uploaded over 1gb of photos! Well worth a stay in a army-esque site!

And it has kangaroos! Scores of them!

They all come out at night around the site, eating the grass around the vans and tents. It’s impossible not to see them, there are that many, and they are absolutely huge and extremely fast.

Now my brother has accused us of having a kangaroo fixation! Its not that; its just that for most people coming from the UK it’s the one animal you want to see when you’re here. Therefore, everytime we see one, we feel the need to take photos of it and document it on this blog. So Iain, just for you, another picture of a kangaroo!

Total Distance Driven In Australia : 5,445km