John Slaney: Trajectory part 4: Canberra

Canberra Panorama (click to enlarge)
 

In 1977 I discovered Australia. Some other people had apparently discovered it already, but a place where the sky is bluer than a rosella's tail, where professors rock up to work wearing shorts and where the first university socio-cultural event I ran into was a cricket match between philosophy and history just had to have a niche for me.

Before arriving, my knowledge of Australia was sketchy at best, comprising pretty much the impression everyone has of some kind of desert with strange animals, plus the word of Hugh Mellor that the Australian National University was the right place to study offbeat logics and a brochure from somewhere - the Australian Immigration Department, I think - containing enticing prose and pictures of Alex Jesaulenko and of "the rugged North Queensland landscape". What Jezza was up to made no sense to anyone innocent of Australian football, and rugged North Queensland is to Canberra roughly what the Bay of Naples is to Glasgow, but it all looked promising.

Here is your starting point for exploring Canberra.

My first day in Australia was Sydney's hottest in years, so it was easy to decide to head directly for Canberra where at least the humidity would be less. I made a phone call from Sydney airport:

Slaney: Could you please give me the number of the railway station?
Operator: Where are you going?
Slaney: Canberra.
Operator: Where are you?
Slaney: At the airport.
Operator: Well, fly!

That's Australia, or it was then: see, the telephone operator immediately appointed herself my travel advisor not because anyone asked her to but because it needed doing. That's the down-to-earth practicality, the openness and the charm. Irresistible!

Dr J K Slaney                      Phone (Aus.):  (026) 125 8607
Automated Reasoning Group, CSL     Phone (Int.): +61 26 125 8607
Australian National University     Fax (Aus.):    (026) 125 8651
Canberra, ACT, 0200, AUSTRALIA     Fax (Int.):   +61 26 125 8651