Fire, Flood, Pestilence

"Goodbyes make you think. They make you realize what you’ve had, what you’ve lost, and what you’ve taken for granted.” 

Ritu Ghatourey - Indian Author 

We had spent a very pleasant evening enjoying glorious sunset views from our balcony whilst listening to the noisy squawking of Canberra parrots flitting from tree to tree in the golden evening light before roosting in local woodland until the following morning.

At one point they were so loud that we thought we were back in New Zealand.

After a light meal at home with a glass or two of local Chardonnay, we went out for an evening stroll to admire the City Walk illuminated sculptures and see what Canberra was like after dark.

There were quite a few bars and pubs in that area with lively outdoor tables which were clearly popular with the 20 and 30 somethings; a more traditional pub nearby seemed to attract people of all ages enjoying a drink, a chat with friends and even card games.

It feels nostalgic thinking of all that now after more than a year of UK pub closures due to covid lockdowns.

We thought about going in for a nightcap but as we had already had a few glasses of wine with our meal we opted for a cup of tea at home instead.

Once back at the flat we checked to see if we had received any emails from our insurance providers yet or any of the airlines we had booked our return flights with.

The only email we received was a cancellation confirmation from our hotel in KL stating that there would be no charge to us on our credit card as our stay was cancelled through no fault of our own.

That was something I suppose.

We were just about to try and contact our insurers again about our flights when we received a call from our daughter in Adelaide.

She explained that they had been sent further confirmation of the Melbourne Comedy Festival cancellation as well as other cancellations later in the year, so had spent most of that day looking for last minute flight deals back to the UK.

Our friends in Adelaide offered to host them on a semi permanent basis if they wanted to stay in Australia until things went back to normal but as all future employment opportunities had been cancelled and money would eventually run out, they decided that returning to the UK would be their best option.

No one knew then that we would still be battling with this virus over a year later, so on balance, it was the right thing to do.

Unsurprisingly most flights they checked were fully booked and others were astronomically expensive, but their persistence paid off as they eventually managed to book a flight to Heathrow via Doha, with Qatar Air for the following Wednesday for just £700 each; considering the average price for flights back to the UK at that time was £2000, they did very well to secure one at that price.

Their main concern was that they would be flying from Melbourne and their luggage was being stored by our friends in Sydney.

We had paid extra to take their two bags back with us on our original flights back via SE Asia; but if we could no longer travel back on those flights then they were concerned that we would have to book alternative flights where extra bags would not be permitted.

They had been lucky with their Qatar Air flights but only 15 kg of hold luggage was included in that price.

We reassured them that we were confident that we would be able to travel back on our original flight to Heathrow from Hanoi. 

We were just waiting for our insurers to approve our booking a direct flight from Sydney to Hanoi as our original journey took us to Singapore and Malaysia and Malaysia's borders were now closed.

With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear now that we were pretty naive and ingenuous when it came to our travel insurance providers.

We still believed at that point that they would come through for us and make contact in the end, even though they hadn't responded to any of our emails or answered any of our calls since we were in Rotarua over a week before.

But we explained to our daughter that if, for whatever reason, we couldn't travel back on our original  flights, we would ship their bags and ours back to the UK before setting off so they shouldn't worry at all about their luggage.

Their plan at that point was to leave our friends in Adelaide on Saturday morning, fly to Tasmania and have a mini hiking holiday there before returning to Melbourne and boarding their flight back to Heathrow.

Tasmania was the only state they had not yet visited and they were keen to see it before saying their final goodbyes to their beloved Australia, their home since January 2019.

We heard later that their trip to Tasmania had been wonderful.

As the state was about to close its borders to the mainland, (I believe their flights were among the last in and out of Hobart and Launceston airports), it was already pretty deserted and many shops and restaurants were closed.

They did manage to visit Mona though which is more than we managed back in February and they certainly had better weather than we had whilst there.

Their social distance hike up Cradle Mountain for the remainder of their trip, was the perfect way for them to bid farewell to their adopted homeland.

Covid had stolen the final few months of their original trip and had shattered any possibility of their extending their stay, for the foreseeable future at least.

To say they miss Australia is an understatement indeed; it was without doubt one of the most extraordinary periods of their lives so far.

But against all the odds, after 6 months of lockdown in the UK, they managed to find jobs in Madrid and set off for Spain, so for now at least they are happy in the Spanish sunshine until one day, hopefully, in the not too distant future, they can return to Australia, New Zealand or both

Herd Immunity in UK

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/herd-immunity-will-the-uks-coronavirus-strategy-work

Needless to say we didn't manage to make contact with our travel insurance providers that evening  but, as promised, we did receive an email from Airbnb with a few accommodation options in Sydney from 16 to 20 March; the email guaranteed that the apartments on that list would not cancel our booking at the last minute whereas if we booked via the main site, landlords did now have that option.

We were very impressed at how well Airbnb looked after us at that difficult time.

We loved the one bedroom apartment in Bondi Junction which would have been perfect for our final two nights in Australia.

It was slightly more expensive than our usual choices but it was beautifully spacious which we needed as we would have collected our daughter and her partner's bags by then plus our extra bag which our North Sydney friends were storing for us.  

We confirmed that we wished to book that apartment but not the others.

I then spent the rest of that evening working on my laptop and I even managed to chat with my line manager about a meeting I was due to attend in Manchester which I heard had been cancelled.

She explained that all face to face meetings had been cancelled for the foreseeable future and would be replaced with online sessions using a video conferencing platform.

The situation in the UK was pretty desperate it seemed. 

COVID-19 was spreading rapidly through the community and people were speculating that the country was only a few weeks behind Italy.

My colleague was also worried about us; she was particularly concerned that our insurers had not responded to any of my emails since early March; she felt that if they were planning to assist us, they would have got back to us already; she told us about news reports she had seen several times on TV about people stuck abroad where their UK based travel insurance providers just abandoned them to their fate; these insurers were clearly overwhelmed with the situation they suddenly found themselves in and did not have the funds or the staffing able to cope with the many demands on them at that time.

She urged us to stop relying on any assistance at all from them but to contact the British High Commission in Australia instead and see what they advised.

I assured her that I would definitely do that the following morning.

When you're over 10,000 miles away from home and you have limited access to WiFi, TV and radio, you end up receiving snippets of news which don't always make sense.

We had heard from several sources that COVID was spreading through the community in the UK at the same speed as it had spread in northern Italy in February, but then we also read that large sporting events all over the country, were still taking place.

The Cheltenham Gold Cup was taking place that very week on those same days that we were in Canberra.

Surely that and other mass gathering events should have been cancelled long before it got to that point.

We had experienced New Zealand's immediate and very united national response to covid from when we attended Prime Minister's Questions on 4 March.

Within days, social distancing measures were introduced and people were encouraged to stay at home if at all possible; their track and trace system was efficient and reliable, borders were closely monitored then closed completely just days after we left, restaurants started blocking half their tables from early March so as to avoid seating people close to each other and (apart from in central Auckland), most people were adhering to the 2 metre rule as much as possible.

Although things were very different when we first returned to Sydney on the 10th, with every day that passed we could see more and more restrictions in place, mass gathering events were being cancelled that week all over the country and social distancing in restaurants and bars would soon be upon us.

Neither Australia nor New Zealand were experiencing infection rates anything like those in the UK, yet they appeared to be responding to the crisis with far more urgency and immediacy.

We could not understand this at all.

We fully expected social distancing measures to be similar if not even more austere in the UK considering the rapid spread of the virus there but that was clearly not the case.

It was all very worrying and the thought of it did render our imminent return rather frightening.

My colleague explained that the UK government was working on the herd immunity theory which relies on a large percentage of the population catching the disease and becoming immune as a result; but my issue with that was the fact that this disease was a known killer; surely the UK government knew this; they must have seen and heard news reports and warnings from Italy where the death rates from it at that point appeared virtually out of control.

New Zealand transmitted those warnings on TV on a daily basis and took immediate action,

The UK government would surely have seen those same news reports as well; were they therefore prepared to sacrifice a large percentage of the mainly elderly population in order to immunise the stronger, younger elements who would still become ill but could survive?

I later read the following article by Sarah Boseley in the guardian which I found rather alarming: 

"Herd immunity is a phrase normally used when large numbers of children have been vaccinated against a disease like measles, reducing the chances that others will get it".

"As a tactic in fighting a pandemic for which there is no vaccine, it is novel – and some say alarming".

"It relies on people getting ill with the disease – in this case Covid-19.

"Generally it is thought that those who recover will be immune, at least for now, so they won’t get it twice".

(That was written on 13 March 2020, we do now know that people can get it more than once especially once it starts mutating).

"But allowing the population to build up immunity in this way – rather than through widespread testing, tracking down the contacts of every case and isolating them, as many other countries in Asia and Europe have chosen to do" (and as New Zealand was doing very effectively from that first week in March), "could increase the risk to the most vulnerable: older people and anyone with underlying health problems".

"To reach herd immunity, about 60% of the population would need to get ill, survive and become immune, according to Sir Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser".

"Though it could need as much as 70% or more".

So how many had to die for that to happen? I am sure I wasn't alone in wondering that.

"Even scientists who understand the strategy are anxious. “I do worry that making plans which assume that such a large proportion of the population will become infected" (and hopefully recover and immune) "may not be the very best that we can do,” said Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious disease at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine."

"Another strategy might be to try to contain it long enough for a therapy to emerge that might allow some kind of treatment".

"This seems to be the strategy of countries such as Malaysia and Singapore".

"While this containment approach is clearly difficult (and may be impossible for many countries), it does seem a worthy goal; and those countries that can should aim to do.”

"The government’s “nudge unit” seems to favour this strategy".

"Dr David Halpern, a psychologist who heads the Behavioural Insights Team, said on BBC News":

“There’s going to be a point, assuming the epidemic flows and grows, as we think it probably will do, where you’ll want to cocoon, you’ll want to protect those at-risk groups so that they basically don’t catch the disease and die then by the time they come out of their cocooning, herd immunity will have been achieved in the rest of the population.”

"But Anthony Costello, a paediatrician and former World Health Organization director, said that the UK government was out of kilter with other countries in looking to herd immunity as the answer".

"It could conflict completely with WHO policy", he said in a series of Twitter posts, "which is to contain the virus by tracking and tracing all cases" as New Zealand and Australia had both done.

"He quoted Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO director general, who said: “The idea that countries should shift from containment to mitigation is wrong and dangerous.”

"Herd immunity might not even last, Costello said. “Does coronavirus cause strong herd immunity or is it like flu where new strains emerge each year needing repeat vaccines? We have much to learn about Co-V immune responses.”

He was right of course, the many new strains of Covid 19 that emerged and are still emerging over a year later would have certainly put paid to any herd immunity theory.

"Vaccines, were a much safer way of bringing it about", said Anthony Costello.

We know now that the UK's herd immunity response to Covid, lack of PPE and the poor track and trace system in those early weeks and months cost the country many lives. 

The Prime Minister himself became very ill with it as did other ministers and government advisers.

But fortunately the excellent vaccination program and austere national lockdowns from November 2020 to April 2021 has improved the situation immensely.

It appeared that the UK had to learn by trial and error what other countries were able to process through listening and adhering to advice by the WHO and by those who had suffered the debilitating effects of Covid before them.

This was tragic indeed as it resulted in so many deaths which could have been prevented.

But with regard to our own situation back in March 2020, that chat with my colleague changed our perspective completely re where we stood with our travel insurance providers and also raised concerns in us as to whether we should return to the UK at all considering the desperate state it would soon find itself in.

We would need to make contact with the British High Commission as soon as possible for advice on travelling back on our original booked flight from Hanoi the following week or whether we should consider booking an alternative flight via Doha or Dubai.

Obviously if we could travel back on our booked flight from Hanoi to Heathrow that would be preferable as we had managed to secure business class flights with 40kg of checked luggage each for less than £2000 which would certainly not be available at that point.

We were also planning to ask whether we should be embarking upon such a long journey at all during a pandemic at our age considering the state the UK would be in when we got back there almost two weeks later.

What was suddenly as clear as day to us both though was the fact that our travel insurance had jumped ship and had abandoned us in Australia; we were just angry that it took us so long to even consider that as a possibility.

Vivienne at the British High Commission, Canberra 

When we called the British High Commission that second time, we were put through to a person called Vivienne who was helpful and reassuring.

It was just what we needed at that very volatile time so far away from home.

The first thing she asked when we explained our situation to her, was whether we had managed to make any contact at all with our travel insurance providers and if so what advice had they given us so far. 

We explained that we last spoke to them just over a week before and they told us then that we should return home on our pre-booked flight from Hanoi to Heathrow on 23 March as they saw no reason at that point for us to change that even though Malaysia had already closed its borders and our flight to Hanoi from Sydney was via Singapore and KL which we would now not be able to do, so we were waiting for them to get back to us with advice on how we should travel to Hanoi under the present circumstances.

Since that last conversation they had not responded to any calls or emails from us at all.

Vivienne was not surprised at the behaviour of our insurers, though she was disappointed in them, especially when I explained that we had opted for platinum cover which was the most comprehensive and expensive of all their travel cover options

She advised us at that point, to read the small print on our policy documents and try and find out the name of the parent company and / or underwriters to see if we could find any numbers for them.

If so we should call them immediately that day which for us would be late that night due to the time difference between the two hemispheres.

She explained that as the gov.uk advice at that time was for all UK nationals to return home as soon as possible, insurance companies should have been assisting stranded tourists to do just that rather than tell them to wait three more weeks and then stop communicating with them completely.

She gave us a case number and told us to call back the following day with whatever information we managed to find then she would continue to advise us accordingly.

When we asked whether we should travel at all at that time considering our age and the fact that a deadly virus was taking hold of the world in such a tenacious way, she said that staying in Australia may be an option which our insurers may suggest if that is something we would prefer; shipping bags back to the UK and last minute flights which included 40kg of luggage were likely to be extremely expensive at that point so they may prefer to pay for us to remain in Australia for a few extra weeks instead.

We agreed to call her again after 10:00 am the following morning.

We were relieved to have someone supporting us properly at last.

At least that is what we believed then.

Tourism - Canberra Style

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_House,_Canberra

We had spent most of that morning doing admin and speaking to various people at the British High Commission.

It was annoying that we were having to dedicate so much time to sorting out our future travel plans when we had paid an insurance company extremely well to do all of that for us.

The chances of our returning to Canberra again soon if not ever as things stood at that time, were pretty slim so we decided to have a break, go for a drive and at least see as much of Canberra from the car as we could in the few hours we had left there.

Lake Burley Griffin 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Burley_Griffin

Our first brief stop was at Canberra's famous Lake Burley Griffin, "an artificial lake right in the centre of Canberra".

"It was completed in 1963 after the Molonglo River (which ran between the city centre and Parliamentary Triangle) was dammed".

"It is named after Walter Burley Griffin, the American architect who won the competition to design the city of Canberra"

It reminded us a little of the artificial lake which was built in the Calais area of northern France near where the exit of the channel tunnel is located.

Obviously Lake Burley Griffin, is large and grand and the Calais lake is more of a pond or large bathtub by comparison but its symmetrical banks and perfectly structured layout reminded us of the artificial mini lake created in the Calais area to beautify the dockland feel of that very industrial area of northern France.

"Lake Burley Griffin is located in the approximate geographic centre of the city, and is the centrepiece of the capital in accordance with Griffin's original designs".

"Numerous important institutions, such as the National Gallery, National Museum, National Library, Australian National University and the High Court were built on its shores, and Parliament House is a short distance away".

Our memory of 'central' Canberra, if you can even call it that (in the downtown sense of the word), was of that lake and its surrounding areas which consisted mainly of parklands.

Of course there were the usual  monuments and historical buildings as in any capital city, but it was that lake and the greenery all around it that immediately come to mind now when we think about central Canberra.

It was certainly a very different tourism experience from any other significant city we had ever visited before.

The parkland and lake area were clearly popular with recreational users, we saw plenty of evidence of that even though there was never a feeling anywhere of overcrowding or claustrophobia as there can be at times in many busy city centres.

We didn't see any swimming in the lake when we were there, but we saw people rowing, kayaking, sailing and even fishing.

The lake is essentially an ornamental body of water "with a length of 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) and a width, at its widest, of 1.2 kilometres (0.75 mi)".

"It has an average depth of 4 metres (13 ft) and a maximum depth of about 18 metres (59 ft) near the Scrivener Dam".

"Its flow is regulated by the 33-metre-tall (108 ft) Scrivener Dam, designed to handle floods that occur once in 5,000 years".

"In times of drought, water levels can be maintained through the release of water from Googong Dam, located on an upstream tributary of the Molonglo River".

I cannot deny that having a lake of that magnitude dominating a city centre to such an extent did render our drive far more relaxing than we thought it would be.

I couldn't help but think that if we did not manage to fly back to the UK the following week after all and took up our landlord's offer to rent one of his Canberra apartments for a more extended stay, we would certainly be having plenty of lakeside walks in Central Canberra and maybe even do a little kayaking, weather permitting of course.

The Australian War Memorial Canberra 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_War_Memorial

We had intended to visit the wa memorial properly the previous afternoon then failing that earlier that day but with everything we had to until the small hours the previous night and again in the morning, this very fleeting visit was all we could manage.

The Australian War Memorial is a grand, majestic monument.

We had seen many war memorials on our Antipodean travels thus far but this one was different.

This one in Canberra, is "Australia's national memorial to the members of its armed forces and supporting organisations who have died or participated in wars involving the Commonwealth of Australia and some conflicts involving personnel from the Australian colonies prior to Federation".

"Opened in 1941, the memorial includes an extensive national military museum".

"The memorial is in the suburb of Campbell and it forms the north terminus of the city's ceremonial land axis, which stretches from Parliament House on Capital Hill along a line passing through the summit of the cone-shaped Mount Ainslie to the northeast".

"No continuous roadway links the two points, but there is a clear line of sight from the front balcony of Parliament House to the War Memorial, and from the front steps of the War Memorial back to Parliament House".

We enjoyed views of Parliament House from the war memorial and later from the balcony of Parliament House to the war memorial.

"The Australian War Memorial consists of three parts: the Commemorative Area (shrine) including the Hall of Memory with the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier, the Memorial's galleries (museum) and Research Centre (records)".

"The Remembrance Nature Park, located behind the War Memorial, is the Canberra terminus of the Remembrance Driveway, a system of arboreal parks, landmarks and road-side stops between Sydney and Canberra commemorating the 24 World War II and Vietnam War Victoria Cross recipients".

"Within that Nature Park is a small bronze plaque mounted on a large boulder, commemorating Indigenous Australians who have fought for their country".

"Anzac Parade is a short, broad boulevard named in honour of the soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC)."

"It stretches from near the north shore of Lake Burley Griffin to the foot of the Memorial proper, along the line of sight from Parliament House".

"It separates the residential suburbs of Campbell and Reid, and is fairly heavily trafficked as a route between northeast Canberra (Dickson etc.) and Kings Avenue Bridge", which we did drive over several times that afternoon.

"Along each side of the Parade is a row of monuments commemorating specific military campaigns or services, such as the Vietnam War and Australia's wartime nurses".

"The monuments are mostly sculptures in a variety of styles ranging from naturalistic to Modern".

"The foot of the Parade, near the lake, is paired by monumental sculptures in the form of gigantic basket handles, donated to the Memorial by New Zealand".

"The two monuments are dedicated to Australia and New Zealand respectively, and are inspired by the Māori proverb Mau tena kiwai o te kete, maku tenei, "Each of us at a handle of the basket", signifying the long tradition of cooperation and general closeness between the two Commonwealth countries".

"The symbolic association of the two nations is carried forward in the vegetation decorating Anzac Parade".

"Long beds of New Zealand Hebe shrubs line the middle of the avenue, and behind the two rows of monuments are narrow bands of Australian eucalypt trees".

Parliament House Canberra

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliament_House,_Canberra

Our next stop that afternoon was at Parliament House.

This time we parked our car properly and although we were still socially distancing as much as we could, we decided on an internal visit of this extraordinary building.

As with everywhere else we visited in Canberra, the sense of space in this building was no different.

It felt like we were the only ones there that afternoon as we appeared to be alone and uninterrupted whenever we were in a particular area of the building even though we certainly saw others milling about in the distance.

"Parliament House also referred to as Capital Hill, is the meeting place of the Parliament of Australia".

"The building was designed by Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp Architects and built by a Concrete Constructions and John Holland joint venture."

"It was opened on 9 May 1988 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia."

"It cost more than A$1.1 billion[2] (equivalent to about $4.3 billion in 2018) to build".

"Federal Parliament meetings were held in Melbourne until 1927."

"Between 1927 and 1988, the Parliament of Australia met in the Provisional Parliament House, which is now known as "Old Parliament House".

"Construction of Australia's permanent Parliament House was delayed while its location was debated".

"Construction of the new building began in 1981".

"The principal design of the structure is based on the shape of two boomerangs and is topped by an 81-metre (266 ft) flagpole".

"Parliament House contains 4,700 rooms, and many areas are open to the public".

"The main foyer contains a marble staircase and leads to the Great Hall, which has a large tapestry on display".

"The House of Representatives chamber is decorated green, while the Senate chamber has a red colour scheme".

"Between the two chambers is the Members' Hall, which has a water feature and is not open to the public".

"The Ministerial Wing houses the Prime Minister's Office and other ministerial offices".

Before the establishment of Canberra

As mentioned in a previous entry, "In 1901, when the six British colonies in Australia federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia, Melbourne and Sydney were the two largest cities in the country, but the long history of rivalry between them meant that neither could become the national capital".

"Section 125 of the Constitution of Australia therefore provided that:

The seat of Government of the Commonwealth shall be determined by the Parliament, and shall be within territory which shall have been granted to or acquired by the Commonwealth, and shall be vested in and belong to the Commonwealth, and shall be in the State of New South Wales, and be distant not less than one hundred miles from Sydney.

Such territory shall contain an area of not less than one hundred square miles, and such portion thereof as shall consist of Crown lands shall be granted to the Commonwealth without any payment therefor. The Parliament shall sit at Melbourne until it meet at the seat of Government.

"In 1909, after much argument, the Parliament decided that the new capital would be in the southern part of New South Wales, on the site which is now Canberra".

"The Commonwealth acquired control over the land in 1911, but World War I intervened, and nothing was done for some years to build the city".

"Federal Parliament did not leave Melbourne until 1927".

"In the meantime the Australian Parliament met in the 19th-century edifice of Parliament House, Melbourne, while the Victorian State Parliament met in the nearby Royal Exhibition Building for 26 years".

Old Parliament House

"After World War I the Federal Capital Advisory Committee was established to prepare Canberra to be the seat of government, including the construction of a Parliament House".

"The committee decided that it would be best to erect a "provisional" building, to serve for a predicted 50 years until a new, "permanent" House could be built. In the end, Old Parliament House was Parliament's home for 61 years".

"In the last decade of its use as a parliament the building had a chronic shortage of available space".

It was difficult to imagine that in the new Parliament House we visited that day where the sense of space, light and expanse was almost overwhelming.

It was such a wonderful tour; one of the most enjoyable visits of our entire trip and yet so very underrated.

No one had wholeheartedly recommended Canberra to us as a place to visit since our arrival in Australia the previous December, nor did anyone mention that we would be able to wander freely through Parliament House and stay for as long as we wanted, with very few others sharing it with us.

And yet that is what it was like for us.

We would certainly recommend this tour to anyone visiting Canberra in the future, though prior to showing up there, as we did that day, it would now be advisable to check the website to see how Covid lockdowns have impacted on these visits.  

Best to be prepared 

St John The Baptist Cathedral Russian Orthodox Church Canberra 

https://www.stjohnthebaptist.org.au/en/history/index.html

Whether our church radar was on high alert that afternoon in Canberra or not we do not know, but when we left St Andrew's after our excellent private tour and potted history 'master class', we resumed our driving tour of the city only to discover another very beautiful and very unusual church in a very green and spacious residential area called Narrabundah.

There was a service in progress at that church at the time so it wouldn't have been respectful to walk inside at that time nor would it have adhered to our social distance tourism ruling, but we did enjoy seeing this very beautiful building from the outside.

We discovered later that this was the Cathedral of St John The Baptist, the Russian Orthodox Church of Canberra.

"The Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, with its centre in New York, is, since 1920, a temporary administrative organisation".

"It was established when the communist government in Russia made it impossible for the Orthodox Church to fulfil its function freely". 

"The position of the Church in Russia has improved considerably over the last few years and there is hope for its future there."

"While the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia is not connected either administratively or in any other way with the Moscow Patriarchate, it nevertheless shares a common faith with that part of the Church in Russia and with other national Orthodox Churches".

"The Australian and New Zealand Diocese, whose present Ruling Bishop is His Grace Archbishop Hilarion, was established in 1946".

"On the 12 December of that year the Synod of Bishops appointed Archbishop Theodore (Rafal'skii), living in Munich (Germany) at the time, as the Ruling Bishop to the newly established Diocese".

"Due to difficulties experienced then in obtaining visas, the Archbishop arrived to his post only on 5 November, 1948".

"There were only two Russian Orthodox parishes in the whole of Australia at that time: in Brisbane and Sydney".

"The Brisbane parish was established in 1925 by the Rev. Alexander Shabashev, now deceased".

"The Sydney parish was established in 1938 by the Rev. (Abbot) Methodius Shlemin, also now deceased".

"By 1950 there were already several Russian families living in Canberra and Queenbeyan".

"In response to their appeal and with the blessing of His Grace Archbishop Theodore, Rev. Theodore Mikhaliuk, the secretary to the Diocesan Administration, organized the first Canberra parish general meeting, on 1 April 1952".

"Rev.Theodore Mikhaliuk informed the congregation about the Normal Church By-Laws sanctioned by the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia".

"On the basis of these By-Laws the new Orthodox community began its life and development in the name of Saint John the Forerunner".

"The First Russian Church in Canberra Archbishop Savva Church services were at first conducted in various venues and churches, then in a big shed at 'Riverside'."

"In 1960 a temporary building was bought and brought to the block of land in Narrabundah, allotted by the Department of Interior for the erection of at first a temporary and later of a permanent church building".

"Although only temporary, that building was significant as it  belonged to the community and was built on that block of land".

"The building of the temporary church was completed in 1962 and on the 10 June, 1963 the community was renamed to a Parish by a decree of His Grace Archbishop Savva."

"The parish was registered according to the Normal Parish By-laws on 14 May, 1966".

"The present parish received its first permanent priest only just before Orthodox Christmas in 1965".

"He was the Rev. Anthony Dudkin who came to Canberra to live and take charge of the parish".

"Prior to that various priests travelled to Canberra from Sydney in order to conduct services".

"From 1964 the church services were conducted in the small temporary building until the new permanent church was built and the old building became a temporary church hall".

"The architecture of the permanent church of St. John the Forerunner is in the style of the 14th century churches in the Pskov and Novgorod regions in the north-west of Russia".

"Building of the church began in 1974 and was officially completed in 1988, the year of the celebrations of the millennium of Russia's conversion to Christianity, when the iconostasis was erected and the church fully consecrated".

We were sorry not to see inside this church as pictures we saw later were very beautiful. 

It is definitely somewhere we would return to for a proper visit, should we ever find ourselves in Canberra again.

Aperitivo at the Beef and Barley in Kingston 

https://www.homely.com.au/kingston-canberra-canberra-greater-australian-capital-territory

After an afternoon and early evening of history, politics and culture, we felt an aperitivo was definitely in order.

We continued our drive around Canberra and eventually ended up in an area called Kingston.

Having enjoyed waterside drinks in charming pubs not too far from the Kingston area of South London, we were pleased to find that the Kingston area of Canberra was equally appealing.

We found a vibrant restaurant and bar area right on the water which was a very pleasant place indeed to enjoy our sunset aperitivo with sides of squid and onion rings.

By the sheer volume of restaurants and bars on the banks of that tributary of Lake Burley Griffin, it was clear that this was where Camberrans came for a good night out. 

Had we been there a few weeks or months before, we would have done the same but it was a Friday night and of all the places in Camberra we had visited up to that point, that area of Kingston would  clearly not fit into our social distance tourism plan.

We were not wrong; we selected a traditional waterside pub called the Beef and Barley for our early evening drinks, where we were seated at our outdoor table with just two other people seated at the opposite end of that deck to where we were, but as the evening progressed we could see how the trendy, modern bars and restaurants on that same stretch started filling up with more and more groups of friends keen to start enjoying their weekends. 

By the time we were ready to leave, the Italian restaurant nearby was full. 

Defintely a good area of the city to have discovered and one we would certainly explore better if we ever return to Canberra again in the future. 

We later read a few online reviews of various areas of Canberra to see how they compared to our own experience of the city and the following from the website pasted above definitely struck a chord with us: 

"Kingston is a glorious suburb that is not one dimensional".

"Old Kingston has a lovely vibe with traditional shop fronts and pubs, with the foreshore filled with merriment coming from the array of bars, pubs, cafe's and restaurants".

"The area is filled with young professionals, but also retirees - the result is a dynamic suburb with a true community feeling".

We definitely agree with that.

"It is the Cultural Capital of Canberra, with its cafés, parks, nightlife, beautiful scenery and more - Kingston has it all".

"Weekends buzz with coffee drinkers, kids playing in Telopea Park, it's a short walk down to the foreshore of Lake Burley Griffin, and it's home to some of the best restaurants in the city".

"I've lived on Giles St. for the last five years, and I would never consider moving".

"Sure, it is a pretty expensive part of town, but that's what you get for living in a place that is beautiful, stylish, and exciting".

"Telopea Park school is a short walk across the park, there's a pre-school on Giles St., and it's a feeder suburb for Narrabundah College, which is consistently one of the highest-rated colleges in the territory".

"For those who want to send their children to private schools, St. Edmunds and St. Clare's are within walking distance on Canberra Avenue".

"This is really the cultural hub of the ACT".

"My apartment has views of the lake and the Black Mountains, and I can watch the sun set from my balcony over a glass of wine". 

"Truly a wonderful place to live".

We couldn't agree more.