Making Eye Statements: Australian Wanderings, Part 8

Before getting to the travelogue, I want to acknowledge that today, April 11, marks the first anniversary of this blog. For the last year, “Making Eye Statements” has been both a prod and an opportunity - it has made me a better photographer and the (self-imposed) discipline of weekly deadlines has helped keep me focused and observant. I look forward to many more postings in the years ahead!

Our latest wanderings:

On Sunday, we managed to fit in a tour of the Sydney Opera House, a visit to the Pitt Street Arcade, a dress rehearsal of The Jungle Book in The King Street Theatre, and dinner with our friend Carol and our new friend Beth in The Rocks, near the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Both Carol and Beth are friends of our shared friend Elizabeth. They had just returned from a knitting cruise around New Zealand before heading back to Canada. Nice to be able to hook up with them before we all left the city.

On Monday, we picked up our rental car near Sydney International Airport and Bill drove us the 300 km southwest to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory. It rained part of the way, but the scenery was beautiful and the sun was out by the time we arrived in mid-afternoon. Our hotel was very close to the sleek, new (to me) Parliament House, so we wandered around the outside before clearing security to visit the interior. The most memorable part of our visit was seeing a remarkable collection of photographs by David Foote, the official government photographer of many Australian events for the last 25 years.

In the evening, we had dinner with my friend Ian, with whom I taught at Ku-Ring-Gai High School in northern Sydney in 1971/72. He now works at the Australian National University in Canberra. It was so good to see him again and introduce him to Bill!

This morning, we had a brief - far too brief - tour of the National Portrait Gallery of Australia, where we saw another remarkable collection of photographs, this time the 49 finalists for the National Photography Portrait Prize. (Side note to anyone with influence in Ottawa: it’s high time that Canada also had a National Portrait Gallery!)

After we left the gallery, Bill visited a Canberra fabric store and I wandered around neighbouring car dealerships before we set out for Albury, 342 km away. The weather was wonderful and the scenery even better. Our hotel overlooks a beautiful golf course that has all kinds of cockatoos flying around. Albury is on the border of New South Wales and Victoria, so tomorrow, we’ll set out on the 344 km drive to Melbourne for our week in that amazing city.

I hope you enjoy these photos! I hope to post in a couple of days from Melbourne.