Canberra

We're staying at the Mercure where, it turns out, under its earlier name of Olims, Pat's friend Glenda married Trevor 20 years ago. Small world?

This is the Federal capital, in its own territory (ACT), itself wholly within NSW. Selected in the early 1900s as a compromise between the rival claims of Sydney and Melbourne, it is built around Lake Burley Griffin, after the American architect who designed the city. Like most Aussie cities there is plenty of space and parkland, and mainly low-rise buildings. Unusually for a national capital, it has no international airport: any visiting dignitary has to fly into Sydney or Melbourne, and transfer.

Here's a thing. Imagine if Tesco charged you £1 for a trolley but only gave you 10p back. Canberra airport charge you $2 for a luggage trolley, and will give you 20c back if you return it to where you got it from. Most people don't bother to take it back at all, but leave it in the car park, reckoning that 20p is a reasonable fee to have someone else do it for them. So the car park is littered with trolleys where once people happily retuned them to the designated bay. Brilliant.

Spent a couple of hours going round the very impressive Australian War Memorial, in memory of the hundreds of thousands of Aussies who have died in various conflicts. I knew they'd fought on our side in various European wars but I had no idea they were so close to being invaded themselves, by the Japanese. Darwin was bombed several times and even Sydney was shelled from the sea.

We picked up the hire car and drove down to the coast, a two and a half hour journey. Maximum speed limit anywhere in NSW is 100km/hr, or about 65 mph, and given the roads are good and largely empty, it's very frustrating. Speed limits are enforced enthusiastically, with severe penalties so it's best to play safe. Canberra is quite high and there are hairpin bends with limits of 25km/hr, and it's almost impossible to go that slowly. 

Fire is an ever-present danger here, evidenced by the blackened trees along the road. Most trees here are eucalyptus, which burns a treat. One species, the white gum, when stressed, sheds limbs. Whole branches just fall off. So if you see a harassed looking white gum, don't stand underneath it, would be my advice.

First glimpse of the sea about 5pm. More anon