Second city of sights

The stop at Canberra resulted in most of the unpleasant experiences of road trip occurring in one place. At the top of this list was camping in temperatures that reached as low as -3.7 degrees followed by sharing showers with one thousand other people which resulted in semi regular hygiene practices. Canberra also tops the list for new and strange experiences. So many people sharing one camping ground resulted in the private act of going to the toilet was no longer so private. Blokes will blokes and so we just got too it. This meant that for the first time in my life whilst taking a crap i had an in depth conversation with the bloke in the cubical next to me. This is how I met Dilshan. (I will introduce Dilshan in a latter post)
Common belief is that Canberra is a hole and many people say that it is probably out of simple rivalry for another capital city rather then any actual educated opinion. Whilst its minimum temperature has something to be desired I did actually quite like Canberra and some of the sights we saw. So my opinion is canberra is not so bad. I did not get much time here only two days to be exact but what i saw and some of the places I saw were amazing. However on this trip i spent more time in Universities then all my years combined and I feel that of the ones I saw ANU (Canberra university) can not compete with Sydney universities when it comes to architecture and beauty. Sydney wins every time. Once again these photos are not mine but are borrowed with permission from Sonia Preisser.

Operation Red Fox

Stupidly I choose to wear my fathers old military issue pants over the top of my thermals this morning. Multiple nights camping in temperatures around the minus three mark meant that for three days I was wearing thermals under my normal clothing. This was highly effective at keeping my body temperature up with the exception of toes and fingers. Returning home I failed to add up that the close to freezing temperatures in Canberra in the early morning were somewhat opposite to the crisp autumn day Sydney was experiencing. I stepped of the bus into Sydney central station, said my goodbyes and carried out the line up of required tasks to get a heavy pack and myself on a train. It was here I realized that the heat of thermals and a lack of necessity for them was causing my body to shed liquid very rapidly and made the train ride somewhat uncomfortable for both myself and the Chinese lady sitting next to me. Someone did tell me this past week I was rubbish in the forward planning department.

Saturday afternoon I wrapped up a massive, massive week on the Make Poverty History Road Trip hosted by the Oak Tree Foundation which has taught me many things. I have yet to sit down on my own and really pull apart the week in my own mind. I still have to look at the events, what I learnt, who I met, what mistakes I made and what the campaign achieved but felt the need to get something up on the blog quickly and to give you a heads up there will be many posts to come in relation to The Road Trip.

Whilst I do still have to have a serious look at the past weeks happenings I am certain that one thing I truly value out of any style of event like this is the networking of people with common interests. This was no different, I seemed to bond very well with one particular individual who had an equally relevant common interest in bourbon. This event was intended to be alcohol free so the term red fox was developed between us when ever discussing the sneaky off to a pub for a quick drink. Before long others on the trip seemed to have the same idea and by the end there were an assortment of colored animals spending money in pubs in Canberra.