Australia Day

Wednesday was Australia Day, the day in which all Australians celebrate being Australian and being in Australia, not a difficult concept. It started a couple of days before Monday night when their's a special public lecture given by a prominent Australian, (or in this case a Brit, Michael Parkinson).  On the Tuesday afternoon there's the Australian of the Year Awards at which the best Australian of the last twelve months is given some applause.  Nobody had heard of him (he did some charity work apparently) and he proceeded to spend the next day and a half conducting interviews bashing the countries flag, anthem and head of state.  Good choice me thinks. Following this there was Australian superstars The Wiggles who gave a kids concert and this was followed by a more grown-up concert featuring several Australian acts of varying quality and lots of clips and presenters congratulating everybody for their Aussie spirit in the face of the floods. I went along to the second concert on the lawns of parliament (which is a cool place to have it) post sailing (where we got a good view of some planes flying round in circles, deliberatlely)

Parliament in the dark

Bad camera phone shot of the stage.

Wednesday is Australia Day proper and we clebrated in true Aussie style, with a BBQ and listening to Triple J's Hot 100 (a music countdown of the best 100 songs of the last year on a decent radio station).  Both of which I believe are actually compulsory on Australia Day, and failure to do so would be punishable by law if it weren't for the fact that the Police also have to be having a BBQ and listening to the radio.

We then went for a walk down to the lake, which was actually a bit of a stupid idea because it was so hot and even an afternoon walk was hot and sweaty and not that pleasant, so we eventually found a space overlooking the lake and sat under a tree.

 Sailing on the lake

 The Carillion, a big set of bells, and a nice lakeside setting, with mountains behind.

 Then we headed round to Commonwealth Park, also on the lake, for the evening's festivities, which included some rowing races.

 And some dragonboat racing.

 All in the the very centre of Canberra (the big circular thing is the Captain Cook Memorial Jet, noramlly a fountain when its on)

 And it got dark

 And there were fireworks, and very good ones too, using the settings of the lake and the bridge and Carillion well.  Not loads but enough to keep you interested and very well done.  A very very good display. And a good day all round.