FRIDAY MAY 1     CANBERRA

Bus was level enough for us to sleep alright, despite the slight heads-down angle.

When we got up, all six of the tour groups coaches – and contents – had gone. We hadn’t heard a thing.

John couldn’t hold out any longer…after some laptop research, he phoned Jims Antennas. Was told their Canberra person would contact him.

We needed some food supplies. My turn to Google – for Woolworths. No  way was I just going to launch forth in Canberra and assume the required shops would magically appear. There was one in Belconnen, which did not seem too far away from Sutton. I fed that address into the GPS and forth we sallied.

GPS led us unerringly – to a major shopping complex, with the shop I wanted tucked securely away inside, along with hundreds of other retail outlets. Plus multitudes of people, and their vehicles, going every which way. Not what I’d had in mind. It always seems so hard in Canberra.

Undeterred (mostly), we parked, left dog in Terios, and walked, got the requisites. Although John still assumed we would be dining with daughter tonight and tomorrow, as we passed a butcher, I took the chance to buy meat for a couple of meals “in case”. Also got some rolls to take back for lunch.

Somewhat surprisingly, we even managed to locate car and dog again, first attempt. The place felt like one of those where you could wander forever, lost…

Back to Bus, where we lunched and just hung about, waiting for contact from the family. Mid-afternoon, John’s daughter phoned. Each of the grandsons has a soccer match tomorrow: one morning, one afternoon, on opposite sides of town, which we were welcome to go find, in order to watch. They have some arrangement for Saturday night, but we could go to Sunday lunch, which would have to be brief because they had things to do in the afternoon.

Well, that sorted out the meals…as well as our place in the overall scheme of things!

Our scruffy site

The TV antenna man also phoned. John wanted him to come today, but man was not sure he could make it. None-the-less, we waited at Bus for rest of afternoon, in case. No show.

I walked up to Reception – quite a hike. Wanted to get some tourist information from the display, since it looked like we would have more time on our hands than originally envisaged. The ladies at the desk were occupying themselves folding a mountain of pillowcases – washing from the tour groups that had departed this morning.

I dressed my leg. One wound seemed a bit smelly – not all that happy with it. These were not ideal conditions to be dealing with it as I did it outside again. John was playing games on his laptop and didn’t like me interrupting to spread all the dressing stuff around inside.

We nearly had a real disaster. Dog was pestering John for a ball throw session, so he went out and tossed the ball some distance for her. But – brain fade – she was still tethered! The resultant charge to the end of the rope and sudden stop just about broke her neck. Could have been absolutely horrible, but she seemed to sustain no lasting ill effects.

Having had a late lunch after the shopping, we only felt like a light tea: tin of soup, cheese and biscuits.

There were a lot of kangaroos grazing in the caravan park, from dusk on. I was not sure if the Canberra roos carried paralysis ticks, but gave Couey one of the new anti-tick pills today, in case. It should last a month.

In the morning and late afternoon, it was really pleasant sitting outside in the sunshine.

I got my little portable radio tuned to a local station broadcasting the AFL match of the night, so John was able to listen to his beloved Carlton take an absolute hiding. He then decided it was probably good that the TV wasn’t working, because he wouldn’t have enjoyed viewing same.

I think John was pretty disappointed at the underwhelming family reaction to our visit.