Red Hill

Deborah took me on a hike up Red Hill this afternoon. Still gasping, but the views of Canberra from the top were stupendous.

I was encouraged up by the idea that we would see Kangaroos, but none appeared, although there was plenty of kanga poo up there, which I am getting very proficient at spotting. I suspect people have started to use the concept of kangaroos to get me to do things, like climb up very steep hills.

Back in the capital

So I am back in Canberra.

I have gone from this

to something a lot more suburban and even bush-like. And yet I am now in the capital city, which is very confusing.

You may have wondered why I took an aeroplane for what is only a 37 minute flight. Why not take the train? It could be only a couple of hours surely.

Well, here's the thing. There is no train station in Canberra. No trains come here. There is no railway line leading to or from the capital city. To get a train, I would have had to take coach for some hours to pick up the main line between Melbourne and Sidney (both of which are not the capital city).

It's more small town here. I got a bus from the airport. I was the only one on the bus and I asked the driver to drop me at the central bus station (they do have one of those). Where was I going?, he asked. I told him my address. 'Oh, I'll drop you off there' he said. And proceeded to drive right through town and several miles off the bus route in order to do that. Like I said, a small-town approach to a capital city.

Victoria Art Gallery

The most amazing exhibition of indigenous art, both ancient

And modern

Melbourne

Sitting in the cafe of the Australian Centre for the Moving Image eating delicious food whilst outside the opening concert of the Melbourne Jazz Festival is starting up.

If anyone is ever in Melbourne I really recommend the ACMI - an excellent exhibition of the moving image through the world and in particular in Australia. I saw Scott and Charlene's wedding again! And here is the Ned Kelly costume worn by Heath Ledger in the eponymous film.

Very good staff seminar at Swinburne yesterday with what I was assured was an excellent turnout and 'as lively a discussion as we have ever had' (Head of Department's words not mine) so that was good. It was great to catch up with Rosemary (aka HoD), who was a student when I first started teaching at RGU. We had dinner the night before last at Chinatown here in Melbourne.

The food in Melbourne is excellent, the weather a great deal warmer than Canberra - bizarre since it is only 37 minutes flying time - and the architecture eclectic. There are lots of Victorian (both in age and of course, given that this is Victoria in everything else) buildings overshadowed by enormous skyscrapers.

There are also lots of young people around - lots of universities based in Melbourne and a more artsy 'vibe' than Canberra. Lots of buskers around, but I also noticed last night a girl sitting at an old-fashioned typewriter with the sign 'Will write a poem on any subject for you'.

The high life

So I have arrived in Melbourne.

This is a city. it makes me realise how small Canberra (the capital city) actually is. Canberra has 400,000 people and Melbourne has four million.

And lots of skyscrapers.

The university kindly asked for me to have a view at my hotel.

So I am on the 34th floor. Let me repeat that - the THIRTY-FOURTH floor.

With a balcony.

I have to take TWO lifts to get this high.

I took these views of the skyline and looking towards the sea with one foot on the balcony and the other hooked firmly round the bed.

Kanga bangas

Another in the occasional series 'What the Australians do with kangaroos'.

Look, they have made sausages out of them, but they call them Kanga Bangas.

D'you see what they did there? 

Funny.

Off to Melbourne tomorrow for a few days to give a staff seminar at Swinburne Institute of Technology.

Kangaroos and wineries

Today started much earlier than planned with FaceTime discussions with Nikolas and Frederik during the Eurovision Song Contest. Not only was it still dark here, but it was minus 2 with a hard frost. Very very cold when all you have to heat the apartment is an air conditioner that can also cough out a bit of warm air.

And then, at 9 am, just as Sweden triumphed, it was off for a day trip with the wonderful Fran and her Premium Tour Company to the Marrumbateman wine region. Seven people in a luxury minibus and five wineries.

We hit the first winery by 10 am. He had eight wines ready open for us. 

And so the day went on.

Of course I was mainly on the trip to see the countryside outside Canberra - and it was absolutely amazing. The day soon warmed up and again the sky was a beautiful blue. We were right out in the bush and the views from some of the wineries, with the vineleaves turning orange, were fantastic.

The whole bus got involved in real job of the day - finding kangaroos for me. And we found lots!! 

They are amazing. The bouncing is just unbelievable. You can't believe they actually do it . Of course, I had tasted a few wines, which may explain some of my response.

I tried to take some photos but they kept bouncing away from me. God knows why - I was wearing a bright orange cardigan and calling 'Kanga, Kanga'. You might just be able to spot some  in the middle of this photo, but they are very camera shy.

By the way, kango poo is bigger than you would think.

Dingos and trees

A beautiful sunny day today so time for a walk into the centre of Canberra to do a bit of shopping.

Many of the guides I read about shopping in Canberra were a bit dismissive - all I can say is that these people have never been to Aberdeen. The shopping centre in Canberra is Enormous, with lots of lovely shops, as far as I could see. They even have a Jamie's Italian, to prove that there is no place left on earth where his cheeky chappy persona has yet to penetrate. I am not saying this is necessarily a good thing.

Outside the shopping centre, next to the second-hand record store (yes, Frederik, I went in and moved records around for a bit) are lots of statues of dingos:

It was hard to take a photo of them actually because of all the little children riding on them. No one apart from me seemed to think this strange - have these people not seen A Cry in The Dark?

I have been noting a real difference between imported and indigenous tree varieties on my walk. The imported trees - oaks, maples, etc - are all beautiful autumn colours, but the eucalypts don't seem to do this. I will monitor the situation further. What lots of the Eucalypts do do is kind of moult their bark. There are lots of different Eucalypt varieties, but the ones around here mostly seem to be of the stringybark type. Their bark comes off in great long strings and lies at the bottom of the tree in heaps. Apparently this is to encourage bushfires - these trees regenerate after bushfires when buds buried deep in the tree are stimulated. So these trees are basically amassing kindling around their trunks to start fires. 

The second photo below shows the foliage of a local Eucalypt in comparison to the oak tree outside my apartment.

So today we learned about suicidal trees and babies playing on dingos. We're not in Kansas anymore Toto.

Nearly got a key

One step closer to a key today with the attainment of a staff card. This has given me internet access (so useful when you are doing research about women online) and also the right to be let into the office by security guards. So yay! 

Unfortunately this means that I have to ring security and request someone to come to the office whenever I want to get in and out, which is as confusing to them as it is to me. I note that I am getting more and more British in all my interactions with the admin people at the university. I described something as Jolly Good today. No doubt I will be saying Spiffing by the end of the month.

In other news I appear to have develop an allergy to Australia and can't stop sneezing. I suspect it is a reaction to all the things falling off trees at the moment. There has been a very strong wind all day today and a lot of the beautiful autumnal foliage is now on the ground.

I realised that I have not yet shared any photographs of the campus, so here are some:

UK Election Analysis 2015 publication

http://www.electionanalysis.uk

This is a link to the pamphlet just published by the Political Studies Association and Bournemouth University, which will be launched at the House of Commons next week. 

The article by our team about our work on Twitter during the televised debates can be found here:

http://www.electionanalysis.uk/uk-election-analysis-2015/section-6-social-media/twitter-response-to-televised-political-debates-in-election-2015/

Cheese and biscuits

I have become Cheese and Biscuits woman. 

It is easier to go out for something for lunch at a cafe and then eat cheese and biscuits in the evening. Ironically in front of Australian Masterchef.

There appear to be two basic types of Australian cheese. They call them 'Tasty' and 'Sharp'. You can also get 'Crumbly'. Sometimes you can get a mix, for example 'Sharp and Crumbly'. I think the cheese that I have at the moment is Tasty - at least that is its name. It is a bit of a misnomer.

The cheese aisle in the supermarket is very large, but mainly with varieties on tasty and sharp and crumbly. However, there is another important section - what might be described as 'mucked about with' cheese. Here you have cheese with the addition of fruit, nuts, spices, herbs, etc. Some of them very adventurous. Today we have apricot and almond (OK) and fig and walnut (more OK but it ain't no Boursin). I drew the line at the one with cinnamon in it because I don't think there is any place for cinnamon in cheese. But I may have cracked by the time two months are up.

The key saga continues. I have given details of my age, address, height, weight, next of kin, first born child, etc to the security people and they are getting back to me. In the meantime I am continuously grateful that I made the decision to go for an apartment with a separate bedroom, however small, so that 'working at home' does not mean perching on the side of the bed.

No Worries

It has been a horrid day in Canberra weatherwise, with heavy rain and dark skies all day. Chilly too. Very autumnal.

I have been working at home whilst waiting for a key to the office to be made - although there are hopeful noises being made and maybe I can get it sorted tomorrow. The term 'No Worries' has been used - although, to be frank, I am learning that this is used with great frequency for any kind of situation. In the space of a three-minute engagement with a pharmacist yesterday the phrase was used at least ten times. None of which were by me. Those who know and love me know that Worrying is basically what keeps me together and so 'No Worries' has very little meaning for me. Where would we be without worries, fretting, tension and general concern?

What I have managed to do today is to organise my trip to Melbourne to give a paper at Swinburne Institute of Technology next week. I will be speaking on 28th May, which - coincidentally - is the date of a reception I have been invited to at the House of Commons to celebrate the publication of UK Election Analysis 2015: Media, Voters and the Campaign - Early Reflections from Leading UK academics. Exciting title.

The invitation from Conor Burns MP (who he?) arrived yesterday. It says that the publication features '70 contributions from leading scholars in media and politics in the UK, providing a mix of early reflections, analysis and preliminary research findings from the 2015 General Election'. Sounds very good. There are light refreshments as well. Hopefully Simon or Graeme can go along to represent us and mingle with the great and the good.

How amazing to find the perfect gift to take home so early in the trip. The blurb says that this is 'Pure Australian vitamins tailored for the needs of men'. I think we can read between the lines there... Apparently 'kangaroo meat is converted into powder and then encapsulated'. Yum.

 It should be noted that I had taken this photograph in a pharmacy earlier this afternoon before realising that there was a news camera team behind me. So I may appear on ABC news tonight in some guise or another. I had better watch the Eurovision quiz instead. (On every night. Australia is very very excited about being in Eurovision this year).

 But it hasn't been all pharmacies and Eurovision today. I have been into the university and been made known to various people. Have been booked for not one but two seminars on my research and have been shown where I am to work, once someone has spoken to someone else about getting me a key. So it may be working at home for a couple of days.

The Old Bus Depot

Off to the Old Bus Depot this morning for an enormous craft fair that takes place every Sunday. Each week has a different theme, and this morning the theme was wool. Hence over a hundred stalls with wool producers, dyers, knitters, weavers, etc all showing and selling their wares. Beautiful colours and textures from all over Australia. 

I forgot to say yesterday that I have seen a kangaroo!! OK, it was a dead one by the side of the road, but still an actual kangaroo. It was grey, which surprised me. I thought it would be more brownish, but I realise now that this is probably the influence of A A Milne.

Here a few photos of the outside of the Parliament building from yesterday. The walls of the building are covered in grass, so it seems to meld into the hillside and looks much smaller from outside than it actually is. The flagpole dominates the whole of the area and can be seen for miles. For fans of Fun with Flags, the flag is the size of a double-decker bus!

It's who you know

Amazingly, last night comes an email from a colleague in Aberdeen. Not someone I have ever met, but she had seen the press release about my visit to Canberra and wrote asking whether I would like an introduction to her sister, who lives here.

A couple of emails later, and I am in contact with Madeleine, who volunteers to show me around Canberra today.

I had already planned to undertake the hike out to the lake and National Museum, so she picked up from there late morning.

It was great to meet someone who knew the city so well. She took me up to an lookout outside the city where I could see the whole city laid out in front of us. Another beautiful day meant that you could see for miles.

It turns out that Madeleine works at the Parliament, so I also got a tour there. A month ago, we were touring the Cortes in Madrid - this is getting to be a habit! Some photos for Nikolas of the House of Representatives and the Senate:

Where am I exactly?

Canberra is built around a very large lake called Lake Burley Griffin, named after the architect who designed Canberra. The suburbs to the north and south are designated 'Inner' and 'Outer' suburbs, so for example I am staying in an inner north suburb. The fact that Canberra sprang, as it were, complete from the brain of Mr Burley Griffin, rather than developing naturally over a series of centuries as other capital cities did, means that you do not get the phenomenon of villages being swallowed up and giving their names to parts of the city, as you do in London, for example. Hence the inner and outer, north and south. The map below hopefully demonstrates the planned symmetry and circular design of the city.

But this leads me to an important question - if I know that I am in a north inner suburb, then why does the design of my apartment suggest instead that I am somewhere in France?

Yes, that is a very large Eiffel Tower on the wall of the living room between the bathroom and the kitchen. I also have a little model on the table and lots of cushions bearing the image of the Tower on the bed. 

No, I don't know either.

In which our heroine buys a hot water bottle

Today's jobs were all related to settling in. So I needed to buy a bus pass in order to get to the university, find out where my closest food shops were and buy a hot water bottle.

The hot water bottle was somewhat of a priority now I have discovered how cold it gets at night. Minus 1 last night with a frost this morning. However, the skies have been a beautiful clear blue all day and the temperature rose to a much more pleasant 14 degrees by midday.

Canberra is built around a large manmade lake. I am staying to the north of the lake, and the city centre shops are also the north. I did plan to walk all the way to the lake this morning, but the distance was longer than it looked on the map so I only made it as far as City Hill, which had a lovely lookout to the mountains to the south of the city and a centenary marker for the centenary of the founding of Canberra in 1914.

You can see how blue the sky is!

Back home I am still awaiting the arrival of the missing suitcase, but rumour has it that it has at least landed in Canberra.

On the downside, no sight of kangeroos yet, but on the upside, no sight of snakes and spiders either.

Hot water bottle was purchased at The Big W, by the way, which appears to be Woolworths in Australian form. 

I have arrived, but where is my luggage?

After a very very very long journey I have finally arrived in Canberra.

The journey started of course with a late departure for the flight from Aberdeen, which meant that there was very limited time to get me and my luggage across Heathrow to a different terminal for the flight to Sydney.

When I got off the Aberdeen plane I was greeted by a 'runner' whose job it was to rush me between terminals via a lot of back ways. She was determined that I would not miss the plane, but halfway there completely misjudged a sliding glass door. I got through it, but she ran straight into the door. Ouch. 

Clutching her side and her knee, which had made a hearty clonk sound, she actually said the words 'You go on without me'...

And so I did, and I managed to catch the plane. My luggage however - one suitcase did arrive with me in Canberra but the other is coyly waiting in Heathrow for another flight tonight apparently.

What I have realised is that I am not a thoughtful packer. If you can have one suitcase filled with everything you might need for a stay in Canberra - toiletries, clothes, important pieces of information, and one suitcase filled with stuff basically entitled 'Why did I think that I needed that?', then it is the second suitcase that has come along for the ride.

Hence my first duty after unpacking (why bother?) has been to set out to find a shop supplying all the many things I did not bring with me.

On my way, I saw these trees. They are, I think, a lovely shade of blue.

Off to the airport

So I am leaving this afternoon. Bags mostly packed, visa and passport checked obsessively, neck pillow for the plane blown up.
I know very little about Canberra apart from what I have read in Bill Bryson's book about Australia, which ought to be subtitled 'Australia has a lot of things that can kill you'. Bill did not like Canberra very much, which is not encouraging. But on the other hand, he did not like Aberdeen very much when he came here either.

Before I go, here are some photographs of the Bullers of Buchan, which Marion and I visited last Saturday, to remind me of what Aberdeenshire looks like when I am down under.