Here comes the sun...

One thing that has struck me about the beauty of a Canberra winter is the glorious clear days. The sky is blue and clear, often dotted with hot air balloons in the morn and the rays of Sol peak over the horizion and dance across the sky during the day. But it isn't warm. Standing in the sun you still feel cold as the rays that hit you seem to have lost all their nourishing heat somewhere in the atmosphere before hitting your face. It's somewhat bizzarre if you aren't used to it and as a result my complaint for being cold is summarised as "the sun is broken."

Walking around the market on Saturday morning I noticed something was different- the sun in the sky felt warm on my face! They fixed Sol! I walked around my back garden on Sunday in my towel just to get more sunlight. Would have done it naked but didn't want to freak out housemates and neighbours. I've missed vitamin D.

There is a tree near the house on the corner. I think it is an apple or a cherry- I don't know my trees well enough to tell. Her naked branches are beinging to be covered in delightful pink and white blossoms. It's the first hint of spring. Nemo and other more permenent Canberrians have warned me that spring isn't here just yet- that there will be a cold snap or a storm, that spring is wet.

But, they fixed Sol and I am happy :)

Down by the sea...

Okay so the following weekend happened almost two months ago, I started this post and then had to abandon it so just assume you all read it six weeks ago. Bad moonbug for not updating more regularly...

I've spoken before about the geographical terminology used by Perth people such as "down south", "over east" etc I've caught myself using these in a reverse manner over the past few weeks (ie using the term "over west" meaning Western Australia). Not surprisingly there are terms that Canberra-folk use, the main one being "down the coast". The say that one is going "down the coast" means that one is spending some time on the New South Wales coast at one of the many seaside towns that exist between Wollongong to the Victorian border.

Last weekend Rob and I went down the coast.

I caught up with April after work on Friday and we caught the bus back to my place. Hung out a little with Phil one of my housemates before Rob called saying he was going to be later into town than expected so was piking on dinner plans. So we convinced Phil that having dinner with us was much better than mooching around the house all evening and wandered up to Kingland Vegetarian for Chinese mock-meaty goodness. They do vegan "drumsticks" which are a little bizarre but are fairly tasty and the food there is generally pleasant. After dinner Phil headed home and April and I decided to hangout at a coffee shop because we were wussy West Australians and it was far too cold to walk home just then. Rob joined us eventually and after dropping April home we crashed for the night.

I woke on Saturday early with the urge to clean things. I have learnt that doing anything noisy before 11am in my house is not a good idea on account of sleeping and hungover housemates (and in this case a houseguest) so I swept, cooked breakfast and called home. After some discussion Rob and I decided to head to the coast around lunchtime with no particular plans other than stop when we have a reason too- ain't inertia grand?

Once you leave the outskirts of Canberra city you are greeted by rural New South Wales. The vast expanses of paddock that, due to the drought, are light brown and grey in appearance with a few sparse trees is a vast contrast to the city which we were in less than a half hour before. Okay so maybe large country town is more accurate than city, but it is the capital after all.

Eventually the farmland gave way to shrubbery and then dense eucalyptus forest as we began to travel through the mountains. The vegetation is amazing and such a contrast to the farmland. It's dense, rich and a lovely shade of green. Whilst it was obviously an Australian forest- the ferns and eucalyptus gave that away- it was unlike any other forests I have seen in my own country before. As we crossed the mountains the vegetation changed again, it was thinner and eventually gave way to coastal plants as we came further to the coast.

We drove through Batemans Bay to Moyra Heads along the coast but decided to stay the night in Batemans. It's a funny little town, a touristy seaside village that has grown through popularity and now sprawls up and down the coast. After finding a place to stay we headed out to dinner at a nice little Italian cafe.

The following morning we went for a walk along the water before finding breakfast. It was a gorgeous morning, blue sky scattered with a few clouds and the sun. After wandering town a littler we had breakfast in the pancake cafe which overlooked the harbour spilling into the Pacific, utterly delightful watching the boats, humans and birds wander about their Sunday.

Drove back through the mountains, the forests, the river valleys, the rolling farmland, through Queanbeayan, Bungendore and other small towns til be got home. A most relaxing weekend with a good friend.

And yes Greg I promise to write more often.