I’d like to correct some people’s views of our nations capital – you know who you are. Here are some things I learnt.

ACT locals don’t like traffic lights. I counted at least twenty roundabouts.

The city has to be the greenest city in all of Australia – instead of token parks in between masses of buildings, Canberra has token buildings between masses of parks and bushland. I heard the saying ‘Australia’s bush capital’ more than once.

Their buses have stickers on the outside of windows that state (in all seriousness) ‘Do not enter the bus through windows’.

Locals remark they do have traffic jams – but when the lights go green, the jam is gone (I’m told they have recently started having real traffic jams).

There seems to be wifi everywhere.

Their bus stops are camouflaged as 70’s science fiction booths.

They have an unusual amount of irish themed pubs for such a small population.

The first five people I met told me that Canberrra is like Perth but much quieter. That concerns me given I thought Perth was quiet.

Fyshwyk, home of Australia’s porn industry, doesn’t look like a suburb built on porn. It’s mainly light industrial/heavy commercial.

Everyone who I saw walking the streets of the city had Government ID cards on lanyards around their necks. I’m talking 3 out of every four people, no kidding.

Every place of importance needs to be named starting with the word ‘National’ (see National Library of Australia, National Gallery of Australia, National Museum of Australia, etc) or ‘Commonwealth’ (Commonwealth Place, Commonwealth Circle, Commonwealth Building, etc) – I expected to see a National Commonwealth Capital Street, but I was sadly unfulfilled.

There are 80 embassies within 5 km of Parliament House.

There is little graffiti or stenciling.

There are no international flights in or out of Canberra.

Everyone is amazingly friendly – bus drivers, taxi drivers, random people in the street.

Photo: Wall at Australian War Memorial.

I’m sitting at Canberra airport, after a whirlwind 37 hour visit to our nation’s capital to launch Port 80 Canberra last night.

Thanks to our gracious hosts, Nat and Damo, we had a good evening at King O’Malleys in Civic, Canberra. The turnout wasn’t as good as we’d all hoped, but possibly the storm (including hail!) which hit Canberra two hours before we kicked off detracted people from braving a Tuesday evening.

Nevertheless, a few good conversations took place, many beers were drunk, we all had a laugh and I feel everyone was keen to see Port 80 meetings continue.

A BIG shout out to the staff at Chifley on Northbourne, for letting me book in at 7.00 am instead of the usual 2.00 pm – that really helped after a midnight flight.

A HUGE hello to Michael Richards from eLearningMedia.com, who was a gracious host today, and took me on a whirlwind tour (including great commentary) of the citys food institution Tilly’s (great Nachos!), the NASA run Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex and the panoramic Mount Ainslie.

I look forward to returning the favour when you come to Perth, Michael.

Besides the places above, I also managed to visit the National Museum of Australia (including a private tour of their amazing revolving cinema), Old Parliament House, New Parliament House and the Australian War memorial.

I also walked the malls of Canberra, caught four buses, squeezed in two visits to Macdonalds, visited the aboriginal tent embassy, had a beer and pizza lunch at Woodstock Pizza and more.

I was so surprised to see how helpful the locals were – every time I pulled out a map, I had offers of help, advice on places to see and friendly conversations. In fact, all the staff from the above institutions were extremely helpful and I had some great conversations.

I’ll post some more about Canberra in the next few days. I’m tired, my feet kill, and I have a plane to catch.

Photo: Spire and flag from top of Parliament House, Canberra.