Everyone gets lost in Canberra. It's the wild, free-form layout of the suburban road system, and the unexpected roundabouts and hexagonal 'circuits' of the inner city. There are also lots of invisible suburbs spread out all over the countryside.Our well-meaning sat nav lady, Karen, wasn't always much help either. But that's nothing new.
Canberra really excelled itself this trip though. We were looking for the road up to the Mount Pleasant Lookout. Karen pretty well refused to acknowledge that there was such a place, but we knew it was near the military academy, so headed towards there.
There was a promising brown road sign pointing to the right, and in through the gates of the Duntroon/ADFA complex. (I'm still working out the difference between the two institutions, but that's another story.)
In we drove, checking at the gate that it really was OK for civilians to be here, and there wouldn't be an armed response to our presence. We then spent what seemed like half an hour driving round and round these tortuous campuses. We looked for further signs (there were none), we asked directions from several friendly and helpful young military types. We saw lots of new graduates and their proud parents assembling for their graduation ceremonies. Round and round we went, until we suddenly came good. The view from the lookout (top picture) had been recommended in a tourist guide for its Lake Burley Griffin perspective. The lower picture is the view from Mount Ainslie, which we had reprised earlier in the day.
Last year we had a similar 'lost in Canberra' experience in the ANU campus. Again no clues, no signs, no way out it seemed for a while. I think it's a giant conspiracy. They think the lack of signage will buy them time when foreign invaders come to take over the Government.
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