We hit the road for Canberra. Canberra, you might say, WTF are you thinking, you might think; but yes Canberra. The Australian War Memorial has an exhibition on Tobruk, and Ross’s grandfather served at Tobruk and he couldnt pass up the opportunity. Ross also has an un-natural fascination with Australian politics and knows far too much about it. The strange little man even has his own personal copy of the Australian Constitution. Barb has developed a defence mechanism to his ramblings, and was only too happy to let him loose on the unsuspecting politicians and wankers at parliament house. It should give Barb some free time if nothing else.
To put into some perspective, Ross often listens to Parliament live online when he’s home. Lets just say Ross is not your average Canberra tourist. Keep your eye on the news; if Ross manages to corner one of them there could be a news worthy “incident”
Barb grabbed a few hours sleep, daniel played Nintendo and Ross listened to his book for the 4 hours drive …………. 4 hours plus the obligitory stops for lunch, fun and constitutionals.
Early in the trip the long drives and higher speed driving had taken there toll on the fuel economy. Ross normally sits on around 90 to 95kph, but with a 15 hour first day with 110kph freeway speed limits, that would have put us anywhere up 250km or over 3 hours driving behind where we actually managed to get to. The trade off was a spike in fuel usage. We managed to average around 13.5 ltrs/100km during our 9 week adventure last year.
Todays fuel refill was a good comparison because this entire tank of fuel has been at the more relaxed 90 to 95kph and worked out to a very credible 12.5 ltrs/100km, which is a pretty impressive towing economy, and possibly has some credit to the diesel ECU chip Ross installed before we left.
A lunch stop shows the luck of being short in stature (but big on beauty !!!)
The city of Canberra was a very pleasant surprise to both Ross and Barb (and we’re sure Daniel agrees). It is a nice place from the brief drive around late in the day. Ross made a bee line for Parliament house, it’s like his pilrimage to Mecca. Ross and Daniel were so fanging to run over the lawn roof.
Barb nominated the Carotel Caravan Park on the northern outskirts of Canberra. We got to the driveway thanks to our trusty companion “”Katie”, the Tomtom. What a scary housing commission’ish looking crap’ola place that was!!!! Both Ross and Barb laughed at how many times these people have watched campers and caravans drive to the front door, only to turn around and drive straight out.
We headed to the Canberra Motor Village which is quite close to the city but it was fully booked out. Who would have believed that any caravan park in Canberra could be booked out.
We ended up staying just over the NSW border in Sutton, about 10 minutes drive to Canberra city in a nice if not school kid over run caravan park. The bonus is there is a pub located at the front gate.
Tomorrow is a day that will fill Ross’s cockles to the brim. The Australian War Memorial and Parliament House in the one day … heaven on a stick. By comparison, although Barb is quite looking forward to the War Memorial, parliment, Barb says, is boring as bat shit. Different strokes for different folks.
Planing the days activities tomorrow and watching the news ….. Canberra is to be locked down due to Barack Obama’s arrival tomorrow. Ross’s didnt take this news very well, in fact his reaction to this news was colorful to say the least. Although the real visit, The Australian War Memorial shouldnt be effected, his planned visit to Parliament House may pose some problems ……………. WATCH THIS SPACE
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