Mr. Steen Goes to Canberra (and the Snow...)

Perhaps you've seen "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington", perhaps you haven't, but I felt like Jimmy Stewart in that film. I got to participate in our school's 10th grade excursion this year to Canberra and then to the Snowy Mountains. About 75 kids and 5 teachers/administrators left on Sunday night at 9:30 and headed south. After a 9 hour bus trip of very little sleep we arrived at 6 in the morning at the national capital for 2 days and one night of non-stop touring. After viewing the town at 6:00 a.m. in the dark from Mt. Ainslie (850 meters) we started our tours at the old Parliament House and had a interactive lesson on the Aussie voting system. We then went to the new Parliament House and had another interactive lesson on how bills get introduced, debated on and passed. We then went to the National Museum for a couple of hours and then on to the History of Canberra Memorial (?). When we returned to our hotel we had a Trivia Night with questions from each of the tours. The kids and teachers were all in a bit of a daze by the end of that day...
The second day we went to the National Mint to see the making and the history of the Aussie money, then to the highlight for me, the Australian War Memorial. It had a huge fantastic museum broken into historical eras with interesting and informative displays. It also had the tomb of the unknown soldiers from WWI in a mosaic tile mausoleum with a large dome and 10 stain glass windows. It was awe inspiring and solemn at the same time. The memorial wall of all 103,000 Aussies who have perished in different conflicts was very solemn as well and was decorated with red poppies (which were the first flowers to pop up on the battlefields in France after WWI). I could have spent 2 entire days at this memorial. We then went to the Aussie National Film and Sound Archive and got to see some of the classic moments from television shows, commercials and movies including my first look at a clip from "Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo". Think "Flipper", but insert a very smart kangaroo... It was also very entertaining. From there we took the kids to Questicon which was a giant science center with many fun activities for kids and adults. Busy, busy, busy. I also ran across the street to see the Aussie National Library.

The entire city was designed from scratch to become the capitol as a compromise between the competing cities of Sydney and Melbourne. Everything is the 'national' this or that. It was designed by an American husband and wife team from Chicago. It was very unique, as it doesn't have a character or history as a city beyond being the nation's capital like most capitals cities do. Everything was focused on a national level. I enjoyed the visit to Canberra very much as I thought I wasn't going to get there during the course of out year here.

We left that afternoon to drive another hour and a half south to the town of Cooma which was to be our base for the next couple days of skiing in the Aussie Alps in Kosciusko National Park. Before coming to Australia I didn't even know that they had snow here. We checked in to our rooms at a Christian retreat center and headed to town to rent 75 pairs of skis, boots, snow pants and jackets. Most of the kids on the tour had never even seen snow, much less skied on it...We loaded up the bus with all that gear and returned to our rooms for some well deserved rest before the 5:30 wake-up call the next morning.

The weather can be very rough in the mountains as you all know. In fact, the previous weekend one of our Old Bar friends came back from skiing early because the wind was blowing 120 k.p.h. and it was miserable for him. We had remarkable warm sunny days. I went hat and gloveless the entire time, even on the lifts. The snow was good in the morning and softened up quite a bit in the afternoon, but it was still very good. The skiing is a bit different as the lifts tend to go up one valley and you then then ski down into the next valley, take the lift up to the top of that one and ski over to the next one and so on... It involved more horizontal movement across the mountain and less vertical movement up the mountain. In North America the lifts tend go a certain distance then you get on another lift to continue going up. We skied the entire place and it was pretty massive.

Dave and Sue Edwards, who are maths and English/drama teachers at Chatham organized the whole week and did a masterful job. They've been doing it for about 20 years with the 10th graders. They took great care of me and showed me all the best runs (and pubs) on the mountain. They and Don Linegar, the deputy (vice) principal are shown in the photo going up the lift with me. Erica Carter was the 5th adult on the trip. She's another maths teacher at our school. Yes, I am writing the word 'maths', and no, it's not a typo. They do maths and play sport...

It is a bit strange to ski in August. Just like it was strange last Christmas to see Santa in his swim suit or should I say,' swimmers'. It was also strange for me to see snow on the gum trees. I associate them with the heat with cute little koalas sitting in them. No evergreen trees to ski around. It's all upside down and backwards : ) On the last day of our trip we drove back to Canberra for a couple hours of shopping in a big mall and then cruised back north to Taree. When we got home we were told that it had rained 5 inches while we were gone. We just smiled as we had gone to the mountains to the warmth and sunshine! Unfortunately I also found out that all 3 of our kids had been sick for much of the week with the flu. Poor Karen. Being a single mom with 3 sick kids could not have been much fun. I sure appreciate her holding down the flooded fort.