I was fresh off the plane from Europe and once again found myself in Melbourne. When I had moved to Paris, I had endured the winter in Melbourne and arrived just as the autumn in Paris was getting going. The flip side of this is when I left, I had enjoyed the European summer - although it was unreasonably cold during my time in Germany - and the Australian summer was really starting to get going. A fixture of the Australian physics world is the Australian Institute of Physics (AIP) congress, which was to be help in Canberra. There was a large contingent of students and postdocs heading up, so rather than flying, it was more economical (and fun) to hire a van and drive up; it would also allow us to do some adventuring.

Initially, there were four of us all from the same research group planning to make the trip up, but we had a last minute addition: a new arrival PhD student from another group but also from another country. In addition to being a really nice guy, I love travelling around Australia with new arrivals to Australia, as there is much to see that is outside the stereotypical images that are projected to the outside world. Our new friend was German, so his ideas of Australia were beaches, animals and the desert. Whilst there are all of those, when we said that we were going through the mountains, he was surprised that we had mountains. In any case, the stage was set for a good time.

I picked up the the hire car on the Saturday afternoon and met everyone at the University bright and early at 0600. With our large family van packed, we set out - and in something that still brings a smile to my face, our German friend says to me - in a friendly, concerned and German manner: "Andy, do you mind driving on the correct side of the road?" To be sure, I was driving on the wrong side of the road, but his sincerity was fantastic. We were off to a good start.

The drive to Canberra is simple: get on the Hume highway (incidentally, I recently read a fantastic book about Hamilton Hume, the highway's namesake) drive to Yass and then turn onto the road to Canberra. It is roughly 6h30 from the inner city, but we would make a few stops. The first of which was in Chiltern, a small gold-mining town close to the border of Victoria and New South Wales which is home to a bakery, from where we could stock up on coffee, milkshakes and treats. The next stop was about an hour up the Hume and one of the nation's real treasures: HMAS Otway in Holbrook, or better known as the world's most inland submarine. Needless to say it was all downhill from that point onward, but we persevered. Indeed, in an effort to reach the heights of the submarine, we veered inland in the hopes of finding cherries. It was at this point that I suggested that we listen to some podcasts, which were largely unknown, or at least not widespread at the time. The podcast I put forward, RISK!, was a dangerous choice because it can be fantastic, but it can also be terrible. Luckily, the first episode was an absolute winner and we listened to episodes for the rest of the day.

After a few hours, we arrived in what is marketed as "the cherry capital of Australia" (but is more notable as the scene of the most intense anti-Chinese activity in Australian history, the Lambing Flat riots): Young. There was a bit of a discussion on how committed we were to reaching Canberra in time to attend the conference welcome reception, but the outcome was that it would be much better to get cherries. We did not have any knowledge of where to get cherries other than in Young, so we looked at some satellite imagery, drove in that vague direction until we saw a sign for a cherry farm and that was that. The proprietors of the farm were very interested in how we ended up at their farm, as they had only just purchased the place and wanted to attract people. Looking back on it, I think they were out of the way; the majority of farms are on the Olympic highway, and we were to the west of town. In any case, they informed us that if we wanted to pick cherries, there was a minimum of 1 kilograms per person and the cherries were about $5.00/kg. That is pretty darn cheap, especially given that they were premium cherries and fresh picked, and we were allowed to eat on the job. It turned out our German friend was highly adept a picking cherries, filling his bucket in half the time of anyone else, but once we were loaded up, we had a large bag of cherries that came in just under 9 kilograms. As a bonus, when we were settling up, they offered us the leftovers of their staff party, meaning we all got to load up on lukewarm barbecued goodies and soft drink before finishing the drive to Canberra.

Two or so hours later we were driving into Canberra, driving the leafy streets and navigating the Australian National University (ANU) to drop off our cherry picking friend to his accommodation on campus before finding our own accommodation at the Mantra on Northbourne. This was the first time I had stayed in an apartment with colleagues since being a PhD student, and as a consequence of being the most senior I was allocated the biggest bedroom, complete with en suite bathroom. This is a far cry from my first experience sharing an apartment at a conference in 2009 (ACOLS/ACOFT) where I was sharing a double bed with another PhD student. We cooked up a big vegetable curry, gorged on cherries and tried to recover from the day of driving and prepare ourselves for the conference.

The conference was much like any other, although unlike international conferences one has many acquaintances, which makes the social side of things livelier. The notable events were an atomic, molecular and optical physics dinner, initially slated to be held at Debacle but due to the group size, we ended up at Sammy's kitchen, where the food was mediocre but the beer was plentiful. Another evening saw us at a barbecue hosted by an old Melbourne Uni. student living in the leafy suburb of Turner, which would be the same night that one of the PhD. students attended the conference dinner, got completely shitfaced and promised to attend a primary school the next morning and present our work to the kids. To his credit, he did exactly that, but was a little worse for wear during and afterwards. One image that sticks in my mind from the conference is a photo of an ANU professor who bears an uncanny resemblance to ex-Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson. The other moment that has stayed relevant was the preparation of a pasta dish by another of the PhD. students at our accommodation which used somewhere on the order or 400 ml of olive oil. What made this memorable was any discussion that this was perhaps excessive drew a fierce defence from the chef, to the point extreme tension and threats. We also sneaked in a lunchtime visit to the National film and sound achieve of Australia, which was well worth it. Something that has stuck with me from the visit was a discussion of Royal Commissions, namely that they are not, or at least were not designed to be tolls for investigating past wrongdoings, but rather to pursue a line of inquiry of national interest, for example, the commission in the early 1950s to decided if the new technology of television was something worth embracing. Looking at the list of Royal Commissions in Australia, it has been a long time since there was a forward looking inquiry.

The conference finished in the early afternoon on Friday, which left us with little to do other than head to the local brewery, Bent Spoke brewing co. (well, other than the less hip Wig and Pen). A great evening was had - especially discussing the etymology and finer points of space docking - although our group had much sympathy for the students of another optics professor from Melbourne, who is notoriously cheap and forced their students to take the 2300 bus from Canberra to Melbourne. Whilst we were not travelling in extreme luxury, but by driving ourselves in a rental car, it cost us (well, the taxpayer) a bit less than $50/person each way, which is less than the $80/person each way that they paid for the misery that is an inconveniently-timed, 8-hour Greyhound bus trip. In contrast, let us remember the Liberal Party politician that claimed $5000 to go from Melbourne to Geelong and $6000 to go from Sydney to Nowra, neither of which were for work. But obviously, it is fair to demonise the spending of public money on academic research and continue to whittle away what little is given to the Australian Research Council, despite the well-establish and irrefutable benefits to society.

Saturday morning rolled around and we were setting off on our 2-day trip back to Melbourne. Despite having spent much time in the Australian Alps, I had never been to the Snowy Mountains. My desire to do so prompted a suggestion of driving back to Melbourne via the Alpine Way. There were varying degrees of enthusiasm amongst the group, but ultimately it was decided that it was a good idea. We also thought we would take the opportunity to visit one of Canberra's great attractions, the National Gallery of Australia. Initially we had planned on visiting of a few of the attractions in the parliament precinct, but time dictated that would not be the case. We spent a worthwhile few hours in the gallery and the attached sculpture garden before setting out. Stop one would not be either exciting or far from town: a shopping centre where we could pick up supplies (and I could get some soap for Mia). From here we would continue to the Namadgi National Park with the aim of seeing the somewhat oddly-named Gibraltar Falls. The falls were pretty dry but nonetheless impressive, and the location - along with picnic table - made it a perfect spot for lunch. With our German friend, we were keen for the wildlife to be abundant over the drive back, and we got off to a good start with a large brown snake just next to the car park.

Wildflowers in the Kosciuszko National Park

Back on the road, we had about 200 kilometres to cover before reaching Kosciuszko National Park where we hoped to find some space to camp at Thredbo Diggings campground. The drive passed through some pretty county, albeit stripped bare for agriculture. There were plenty of boulder fields around, but given how dry everything was, it was more-or-less a sea of brown. Perhaps it was this that made our arrival to lake Jindabyne all the more impressive; either that or the drive over the Jindabyne Dam/Snowy river that is included en route. We did not hang around as we wanted to get into camp and hopefully go for a walk, so it was straight through Jindabyne and onto the Alpine Way, which on the eastern side is basically a straight road with a gentle incline. Before lone we were at the entrance to the park, and also the entrance booth ($17/24 hours). I was caught unawares that we had to pay for park access as that is unheard of in Victorian national parks (although nowadays you pay for it with campsite fees), but the payment process was smooth and we made our way to the campsite - for which the road was in a terrible state, making driving a people mover down all the more exciting. We found an amazing spot just next to the river, complete with picnic table and crazy neighbour telling us how we must orient our tents due to the imminent extreme alpine winds. It is always frustrating to have someone explain things to you when you are well experienced in whatever they are talking about - camping in this case - but especially frustrating when they do not know what they are talking about. I am not sure if it makes it better or worse that he was clearly off his rocker.

Once we were settled in, we went for a walk along the Thredbo Valley track down to Bullocks Hut, where there was a large mob of kangaroos, complete with a few joeys; the wildlife spotting was continuing to go well. We walked back to camp along Bullocks track, which was littered with wildflowers which were stunningly illuminated by the rapidly setting sun. Back a camp, it was workstations to prepare dinner, although I organised to prepare ingredients so I could sneak off to take some photos down by the river for sunset. The bend in the Thredbo river made an ideal location to take photos, but much to my delight, a wombat came out just before dusk for some foraging. It was quite a mission to return to the site, grab my German friend and return without spooking the wombat too much, but it was achieved and hence the safari was only getting better. Dinner was eaten once the sun had gone down and once it was dark, we were treated to more wildlife, with some brazen possums joining us on the picnic table and happily eating food from our plates. Even after packing everything away, it way difficult to dissuade them from joining us on the table and they eventually forced everyone to bed. The night would prove more comfortable for some than others, with one person retreating from their tent to the car during the night, which could not have been comfortable, but I suppose evidently more comfortable than their tent.

The next morning we were up early and did not waste much time, as we had to get back to Melbourne and return the hire car by 1630, which was predicted to take between 6 and 7 hours for the 550 kilometre journey, and we wanted to have a bit of time to enjoy a few stops on the way - although we did not plan to do any major trekking. We once again had great weather, making all of our stops rather pleasant. Early in the day, we passed the resort town of of Thredbo before crossing over the Great Dividing Range, where the road switches from the gently inclined route following the Thredbo river to the more stereotypical mountain road, with steeper terrain, countless switchbacks and dense forest. There are a number of lookouts which provide great views over the Snowy mountains, and it certainly cultivated an interest in going hiking in the area.

A vanilla milkshake, with visible pie and sauce massacre

In keeping with the listening of podcasts on the way up, we were once again hitting the RISK! podcast pretty solidly which turned up a great story and an even better song which would get a regular run on the lab music system well into the future. After some time we happened on the one of the major power stations, which advertised that it had both a museum and café, so we stopped in. The Murray 1 Power Station and Visitor Centre is impressive from an engineering standpoint, but the museum was a little lacklustre and the coffee was apparently very average; I had an expectation of bad coffee so was not game enough to try. From there it is only a short drive to largely-dead Khancoban and then onto the gorgeous town of Corryong. As we were on a tight schedule, we didn't have time to stop but the town and surrounds are beautiful; I would love to have the opportunity to spend more time there. The town more-or-less marks the start of the Murray Valley Highway, which winds it way through (initially) mountainous terrain, passing the interesting looking Burrowa - Pine Mountain National Park which is host to Australia's largest monolith, approximately 50% bigger than Uluru. Passing these places further whet my appetite for exploring Victoria's north east.

We were blasting through the kilometres, but of course we had to eat. Once we caught sight of lake Hume it was only a matter of time before we were going to enjoying some delicious country bakery delights. Indeed, it wasn't long afterwards that we arrived in Tallangatta and made our way to the Tallangatta Bakery for a pie and a thickshake. Now, one might say that having pies and thickshake every time that you pass a country bakery is a bit much, but it arises purely due to the dearth of quality bakeries in the city. In any case, I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Back in the car, the monotony of driving was starting to sink in, especially now that we had left the interesting smaller roads and were back on main roads, passing through Wodonga and then onto the Hume freeway. From here it was straight back to Melbourne, with the only point of note was a fuel stop where we got out of the car to stretch our legs and one of the team mentioned that it was unbearably hot. Now it was warm by this point - about 35 degrees - but it was only when he revealed that he had been wearing thermals all day, which were concealed under his jumper and pants no less, that the true ridiculousness of his situation became apparent. But we all survived, the car made it back to the rental agency on time and the end of the year could officially start its approach.

Adventures

The Australian Capital Territory