Reflections from Middle Age

I took the kids on a road trip to our nation’s capital last week.  We piled into the car with some friends, strapped in, put on an audio book and set off south.  Once out of the higgledy-piggledy traffic and road works of Sydney it is an easy drive.  Under three hours.  The road is long, pretty straight and fairly boring, cutting through the southern farm lands of NSW.  Sheep, horses, cows dot the landscape.  We even saw some kangaroos.  Living, bouncing ones, not just the normal roadkill. 

En route, we stopped in Goulburn to get a look at “The Big Marino” and have a bite to eat.  I can’t say there is anything to recommend Goulburn for more than an hour, but to be fair, we didn’t explore much further than a quick drive through the streets and a hike up the oversized sheep.  The food we had was pretty revolting too.

However, for laughs, I don’t think anything beat it on the trip.  We pulled up in the parking lot behind this monolithic ovine to hear squeals of “what is that?’  Well, how do you explain to four children under 8 they are looking at one oversized sheep’s testicle that the builders of this fine monument had decided was worth including.  Just one, mind you – do sheep normally have only one?  It filled the windscreen, blocked out the sun, cast a shadow over the car.  There was nowhere else to look.  It’s the sheep’s bottom, we tried.  Funny looking bottom, pipes up one of the smarty pants in the back.  Yeah, well, I thought to myself, crying with laughter, work it out for yourself.  Which no doubt, later in the shower, some of them may well do.  

Yes, I have a photo.  No, I am not posting it here. Unless you ask very nicely. 😉

Another hour and we were in Canberra, with it’s wide streets and huge roundabouts.  Canberra is perfectly planned.  Let’s make the perfect city, they thought, and so they did.  Funny thing about perfection though, it lacks soul, spunk, spirit.  Which just goes to show, it is our imperfections that make us interesting.