“So how did you find Canberra?”
“Err…”
“Dead, uninteresting, nothing happens?”
“I was gonna say ‘soulless’, but that’s pretty much it”
(Conversation with Nadia, traveler from Canberra, on the W trail in Torres del Paine)

For those who do not know, Canberra has been entirely built out of the blue to serve as a capital city. And the first impression I had when I discovered the desert, still city, with its topography in concentric circles (alright, it is more interesting than the usual square grid, but still not good) is this one: this is a dream from Le Corbusier.

And it is not a compliment.

But it does not mean Canberra is to be avoided at all costs. The museums over there (perhaps built in order to give a boost to the stagnant culture of the city) are very good – I come to wonder now if the only thing I enjoy while traveling in cities is the art and culture I find there. I am undoubtedly getting tired of partying – really, I did not go on the other side of the world to burn my money on alcohol (again) and have to withstand overplayed commercial ‘music’ (and again). I can do that at home.

“But you’ve got awesome museums there!”
“Ahhh, I hate museums.”
“Alright, change city”

Early in the waking Katoomba, I took the suburban train again, this time towards the southwest of Sydney in order to get me as close as possible to Canberra before starting to hitch-hike. I had it wrong, though. I thought I could get as far as Goulburn, at the end of the line, but the next train going there was departing in the afternoon. I hence ended up in the small town of MacArthur, that is to say in the middle of nowhere.

I got out of the train station and entered a mall in front of it to get directions at the information counter. Two ladies were there, the first one very kindly telling me how to get to the highway (a few kilometers from my location) while the second one was trying to stop me from hitch-hiking.

“You don’t know you don’t hitch-hike in Australia?”
“Hem… I’ve been doing it on the East Coast, it’s alright”
“You haven’t heard of Ivan Milat?”
“Yes I have, but it’s just one guy that went crazy… It doesn’t mean all the millions of Australians are like him”

Everyone in Australia has heard of Ivan Milat, ‘thanks’ to a horror movie recounting his murders. As if I had not had enough of it, my first driver, a hunter with rifles in the back of his pick-up, explained me how he slaughtered seven hitch-hikers in a forest we were passing in front of, twenty years ago. Ha. No seriously, people have to stop being so afraid of improbable ways of dieing and jump into the unknown, especially in a country as safe as Australia – the only risk you run is to meet amazing people and to live an incredible adventure.

The hunter dropped me at Goulburn – which happens to be the town where Ivan Milat is imprisoned in a SuperMax jail for this life (and the six following). There, a federal cop heading to the Federal Police Headquarters, in Canberra, picked me up and drove me all the way.

“I’d love to go to Japan… I wanna get my ass kicked by an 8-year old boy on World of Warcraft”
(Jamie, Australian federal cop with tattoos and all that)

I ended up in the YHA of Canberra before deciding to take one evening of rest. The exploration of museums would begin the next day, with the Australian War Memorial, and continue the day after with more artistic exhibitions.

A walk along the lake (artificial, of course) right in front of the War Memorial is not a bad idea, especially when the weather is as good as the one I had. You can even meet a few music bands playing in the middle of the trees, if you are lucky.

The next day, I walked on the other side of the river (or lake, or that man-made watery thing cutting Canberra in two) to visit the excellent National Museum of Australia (NMA), dedicated to the Australian history and the promotion of its cultural diversity, before dipping into massive art in the National Gallery of Australia (NGA).

On the way to the NGA though, my sight got attracted by a bunch of tents pitched on the perfectly regular grass in front of the Old Parliament Building. I approached and discovered signs pleading for the Aboriginal rights, and the recognition of all the harm done to them by the Australian people: the invasion and robbery of their land, the children stolen to their parents to be “adopted” by white families, and, still nowadays, the segregation of Aboriginal people on the labor market. Indeed, giving Native people a lifetime wage as a compensation does not, really, seem like a healthy and humble way of recognizing them as a people – to me, at least – and even less of sharing the land and the society with them. To all who would doubt what I just said, just look at the Māori people in New Zealand; their culture, history and themselves are respected and promoted there. They are considered as a richness of the country, and not as undesirable, strange people who do not understand the way the world works. How it works for Western societies, I should say.

As I was taking the pictures all over the camp, I finally stumbled upon an old Aboriginal lady who invited me to sit and have a talk with her. She taught me that I actually was at the unofficial Aboriginal Embassy, created approximately twenty years ago by Aboriginal protesters – the Old Parliament Building was at the time the actual Parliament. And since then, there had always been people camping there to maintain the embassy and the protests going on: Natives, of course, but also people from all over the world as well. The Parliament has been moved to the top of the hill, but they stayed, and still struggle today for better conditions of living, for a hope, for their children.

;

I was late for Bailey; I had told her I would arrive way earlier, but well, you know what happened, I kind of got caught by the places I visited. But that was it: Canberra was my last stop before heading south, on the coast of Victoria, to meet her again…