Canberra with Friends

Sydney, October 26th, 70 degrees mostly clear...lots of flies....I didn't remember these nasty tiny buggers....oddly they remind me of Hay River, Northwest Territories...ouch.

I had a long, wonderful thorough visit to Canberra (CAN-bra) yesterday....flew on the hourly QANTAS propjet and Andrew Schuller awaits me at their little airport.....A lot of you KNOW Andrew and he looks slightly older, has a goatee, his hair has turned from that auburn to sort of gray...but on the whole Andrew is studly looking and fit.......he drove me to the highest point in the Australian Capital Territory and almost on cue we almost ran down a huge red kangaroo. Nice welcome.

Canberra sits in a landscape which is dramatically "Marin County" without the redwoods....golden fields, lots of trees but in copses rather than forests...a planned city, a sop to both Melbourne and Sydney and vaguely in between as you all know....done by an American city planner who obviously had studied Hausmann.....it is a handsome rather than a beautiful city...most post WW2.....some imposing embassies (Andrew is involved at both the British and Austrian ones. His Grandfather was a foreign minister under the dreaded Dollfuss......). We toured more and then picked up son NICK at his private and quite imposing looking school...they thought about sending Nick to the snobby, very establishment Geelong near Melbourne where all of my Melbourne friends (as well as Prince Phillip for a year) studied....but wanted him at home....then to Andrew's house, a nice slightly rambling "50's suburban" place with a gorgeous view across the artificial lake to parliament and the golden hills beyond. I liked son Nick greatly...bright red hair like a young Andrew. He's a tad taciturn but really a charmer, all boy, all Cricketeer, learning Chinese and in the 9th grade...they grade system the same as ours....He might want to spend his high school Junior Year in the USA and we talked about Exeter, Concord and Hotchkiss.

After taking Nick back to his school (Canberra Grammar) met Jenny at the National Museum, a terrifically imposing heap with a sterling collection of Australian art (what I know about Australian artists could be put in a thimble). Jenny is I believe the head of the economics dept now at the Australian Natl University. She is VERY easy, a charmer...was born and lived as a young girl in Vancouver but came to Australia with her parents (both academics and retired). She is quite proud of her Australian citizenship. Nick has both, British and Australian....a wonderful, warm lovely day with people I care for so much.

I probed and probed with both Andrew and Jenny about the thing which puzzles me about Australia: Are they feeling PART of the world of thought/politics/culture and so on...the answer is a resounding yes.......one TV channel carried the Lehrer News report daily, they have the BBC. In Canberra the whole world comes though at one time or another reminding me of what Elia Kazan told me at dinner at my house lo those many years ago: "Fred, everyone in the world will come to Little Rock at least once. Don't feel isolated". Australia is finally coming through for me a bit. It IS possible to be a part of things so far away from those things. It is NOT a vacuum at all. NOW I have to separate my thoughts about the travel wisdom of coming here: there is ENOUGH that IS different to justify the time AND money I feel... and finally I am going to be able to plan an insightful trip for people who want to come here: some takes:

YES concentrate mostly on urban places and what lies just outside them The Outback-Ayers-Rock-Darwin etc. are probably great for Europeans who have never seen such vast spaces. But they are old hat for us. I figure it costs about $1000 extra in airfare to go to Ayers Rock. It is the largest monolithic rock in the world. But I think, "There it is. Wow... What next?".

The cities are rather different one from another......Adelaide is a fine starter with that glorious wine country and hilly hinterland....Melbourne is the BEST visit of the cities, urbane, fun, delightfully user friendly with their rumbling trams and traditions. Tasmania is the one place where scenery really can bowl one over. The Gt Barrier Reef I know is very special but just because it is the longest reef in the world doesn't mean the eye can see beyond the horizon and there are many places on our earth with equal underwater fun. Sydney is very tactile, a city which is fun to touch, (though the modern architecture is curiously better in Melbourne). The people are the joy to be around: Surely no English speaking people are quite as upbeat and lilting, with a delightful regard for our language and superb turns of phrases.

OK you all will be happy that I am leaving Australia and next I will bore you with some thoughts from Cape Town.

...and life is fair dinkem!