The Oz Files, #16: Weekend in Canberra

Finally, kangaroos!

But let me back up a bit.

On Saturday, a bunch of us (Ellen & Simone, Rachael & Ben, Patrick & Alkistis, Matt & Wiebke, me & Michael) decided to go for a bushwalk up Mt. Ainslie, on the east side of Canberra, to hang out and get in a bit of nature. And what a great idea it was. We started off at the base of the mountain around 3:00 and saw some 'roos straight off, along a bridle path that cuts around the base of the mountain:

From there, we hiked almost straight up along the rocks, with magpies and parrots overhead, until we got to the top of the mountain about a hour later. We were treated with some magnificent views of Canberra, including Capital Hill and the Captain Cook Memorial Waterjet:

Yes, the Captain Cook Memorial water jet. Honestly, if I discover a continent (rather, "discover" a continent), I'd like something more impressive than a glorified fire hose. Can we arrange that? Okay? Okay.

After catching our breath for a bit at the summit, we headed back down the path before it got too dark. We saw a few more kangaroos on our descent, but just a small mob (yes, that's the appropriate plural term):

What better after a hike than some good beer? We went to the Wig and Pen for some local brew to take the edge off all the exercise, and then to the Asian Noodle House for some laksa to take the chill off. After that, it was on to Koko Black for dessert --- I had the aptly named Belgian spoil, which consisted of a teeny chocolate cake, a teeny serving of mousse, a teeny scoop of ice cream, two truffles, and a chocolate-dipped shortbread, all of which added up to a very satisfied sneed. Mmmmm... And then, of course, like good Australians we headed back to the pub to round out the evening. So it was bushwalk-roos-pub-dinner-dessert-pub-bed. Honestly, does life get any better than that?

Sunday showed us that we'd done well to plan our bushwalk for Saturday; it was rainy and a little miserable. So Michael and I decided to spend our time at the National Gallery of Australia, getting some culture. It's actually quite an amazing museum. Their collection isn't very large, but what they have is excellent, and absolutely the jewels of every culture they collect from. They just opened their new Asian and Indian wing, and textiles alone are to die for. But the real draw and highlight for us was the series of paintings on Ned Kelly, done by Sidney Nolan.

Sidney Nolan, for those of you who don't know, is probably the most famous modern Australian artist. His fame is due in no small part to his 27 paintings depicting incidents in the life of Ned Kelly. Ned Kelly, for those of you who don't know, is a famous Australian bush outlaw, akin to Jesse James or suchlike in the States. You may be tempted to rent the movie Ned Kelly in an attempt to learn more about the story. Don't. It's appallingly bad, despite the presence of Heath Ledger and Naomi Watts and Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush. Really, it's bad. You'd think, with a cast like that, they could have managed a better script, but no. Take my word for it. They completely ignore the true drama of the social and economic tensions between the Irish settlers and the police and the realities of living a hard life in the bush, and try to work in some stupid romantic subplot for Ned and make him out to be some kind of Robin Hood figure. Note to Hollywood: Ambiguous anti-heros make for good cinema. Unambiguous "us-good, them-bad" stories are boring.

Anyway, as far as I can tell, the story goes that Ned took offense at the attention paid to his sister Kate by a policeman, Fitzpatrick, which touched off a series of clashes between the Kelly Gang (Ned, his brother Dan, and their friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart) and the police, eventually culminating in the capture of Ned and the killing of the rest of the gang by burning the hotel in which they were sheltering. There are various accounts of all of these events, from various points of view, but what makes these particular outlaws noteworthy and what imbues them with a touch of the Romantic is their armor. Ned and his associates forged for themselves homemade armor, including helmets, which were basically big metal barrels with slits for eyes. Nolan's series of paintings takes advantage of this imagery to depict Ned Kelly as a baneful, watchful, barely human presence, like so:

Those of you who have been loyal readers will remember that image from the PBDB t-shirt. It was Michael's idea, which Brett brought to fruition, and it took the mask and skyline and dressed it up with a snorkel and swimming fins to reflect the sprit of the conference.

To finish off the story: After a long stakeout, Ned was eventually captured by the police --- they shot him in the legs, for which he hadn't made armor. Funny how (a) Ned hadn't thought to do that, despite protecting the rest of his body, and (b) the police hadn't thought to exploit that particular weak point before. Ned was tried for his crimes and convicted, and his last words before being hanged were, reportedly, "Such is life."

All 27 of Sidney Nolan's Kelly paintings are housed in the same room at the National Gallery, and we spent a good bit of time just drinking them in. The rest of the Australian collection is very good as well, and obviously not the sort of thing that we can get in the States, so all in all it was a very enjoyable and cultured afternoon.

That is, until we had to step outside into the cold rain. We thought that it might be nice to have a stroll around Capital Hill, see the capitol building and the embassies and such, but aborted that plan almost before we'd gone 5 meters from the entrance. Instead, we called a cab to take us downtown, where we picked up some more veggies and sundries for the apartment. We had a quiet evening at home, making pasta sauce and keeping the chill away, and getting ready for the start of our last full week in Australia.