Canberra.

Catherine was here visiting from South Carolina while Tom was in the states. We were busy. They're both back home, safe and sound and knackered (really tired).
The next few missives will not be in the order of the actual events, but does that really matter?
Where was I... Canberra!
Canberra (CAN-bruh) is the capitol of Australia. Like DC, the politicians hang out there with lots of their supporting cast. Unlike DC, which I claim is half country club and half insane asylum, Canberra is clean and safe and it's fall there.
DC is laid out kinda in a grid with letter streets going one way and number streets going the other. Canberra is also a planned city. I think the plan was to keep neighborhoods quiet and keep tourists confused. The city is several concentric circles radiating outward into overlapping fish scales.
Getting anywhere involved keeping at least 4 lefts and 5 rights in my head. Left on Parliament, right on Qeanbeyan, left on Parliamentarily, right on Oodnaldana, left on Oodnalada, right on Ooodladanadad...
If you miss one, pull over and breathe because you cannot fix it. Just go somewhere else.

The mint was surprisingly interesting with lots of clear road signage to point the way.
They made these pretty Olympic medals.
Thomas loved the huge robotic arm, "Titan." It weighs and dumps coin blanks into their rightful hoppers thence they are off to rotating bins and pressers and punchers and whatnot. Thomas watched, and watched and watched... and watched.
Zzzzzzzzz... oh! Sorry, dozed off.

After that was Questicon, a giant hands-on science museum with all kinds of stuff to teach you stuff without you knowing it. Again, I was using the video camera more than the still, which I share with you all here.

Tidbinbilla is a nature preserve with lovely woodlands populated by swamp wallabies and "planted" animals like emus, koalas, echidnas and platypuses. They are free to roam, within pre-determined, agreed-upon and committee-approved reason. See the wallaby?
Look right in the middle for two dark ears.


There are three 'roos looking from across the pond.



Canberra shopping was fun with a walking mall right across from our hotel. Thomas saw his first sushi train (revolving conveyor belt of little dishes) and enjoyed the seaweed salad, rice rolls and prawn cakes.
A way-too-early plane took us to Sydney 3 days later.

Away from Alice

We got out of here. That is, we had an 8-day trip to Sydney and Canberra.
It was supposed to start with a flight to Adelaide, connecting to Canberra. But how was I to know Alice Springs airport considers itself one of those real airports where you have to show up an hour before your flight and all? Whatever happened to, "No worries, Mate?" I'll tell you what happened - they announce your name once or twice about the time you're dropping your dog off at a friend's house and then they close the plane doors and you have to just, um, make other arrangements. So we did.

They couldn't get us to Canberra but they could fly us to Sydney.
I remembered Sydney and Canberra looking kinda close on the map and the lovely lady in front of us in line said, "Oh yes, and the drive is quite nice." So we did.

The entire trip then went in a similar, "Oh, I messed up, no I didn't, this is better," kind of way.
Example, as we came to our landing in Sydney, I looked out the window at the red-tiled roofs below; there was the Opera House, the blue harbour dotted with sparkling white sailboats, the bridge and.. what's that off the wing? a rainbow? No, a double rainbow! Seriously, it was like that the whole trip.
On landing, we got a nice rental car from nice people. We saw a Domino's Pizza (9 months without) and had a good dinner in our easily-found, comfy hotel room.
Next morning, I got my first real sausage and egg McMuffin in 9 months ("Now, made with pork!") and we headed off along the eastern coast of Australia.
It was a crisp, fall day. The sky was blue, the leaves were turning yellow and red, gold and brown. With the blue-grey of the eucalypts, it was quite a picture.
Oh, you want a real picture? Weeeeelllll, we decided to make a video of the adventure and I was rather neglectful of the still camera.

We did pull over early on the road to see the "Sublime Overlook." We had to see if the Aussie Highway Department idea of "sublime" was the same as ours.

Yep.

I'm telling you, the whole trip went this well.

Black cattle grazed on green hillsides rimmed with rock walls. We stopped in a little town called Berry with hot donuts, antique shops and little cafes. If not for the wombat crossing signs, it could have been Virginia on any October weekend. Even Thomas saw the similarities.

We reached Canberra about dinner time and found our hotel - next to the park, across from the walking mall.

More tomorrow, it's midnight.

to an orange, briefly

Our yard came with an orange tree.
When we got here in late August, it was in bloom. I knew it was a citrus, but had no idea what kind.
It is a beautiful, generous, laden, succulent, bursting with juciness, navel orange tree. Thank you to whoever, about 20 years ago, planted this tree.
Since early June (late fall), we have been walking up to this tree whenever we feel like it and plucking a ripe orange from her branches. Just like that. In our yard.
If you have time, please write a haiku to this tree in the comments. I need to get on with the blogging.