Second Life in Canberra
Popped down to Canberra for a few days to help train the Aussie biology olympiad team. Feels almost surreal, since I spend quite a bit of time down there with the olympiads. Driving is always fun - I find that I need at least 8 hours sleep to not microsleep on the road. A bottle of V and some Disney songs help.
Lots of dodgy drivers on the interstate roads. Here’s a red P-plater tailgating another car, only 1 car-length behind, at 110km/h.
The weather on the way down wasn’t fantastic, but despite this, skydivers were still in the skies around Picton. This one (on the right) was tumbling pretty fast though and appeared to be spinning out of control. Would have had quite a crash landing I imagine…
And finally what the trip to Canberra was for: the Australian Biology Olympiad Team for 2007, competing in Canada in July against 40-odd teams from countries all around the world. They’re still in Canberra at ANU working hard preparing for the competition. We had a team dinner on Tuesday night with some program staff, a bunch of people from the office, and a good friend and long-time supporter of the biology program, and then drove up Black Mountain after some late-night dessert. Standing next to Telstra Tower in hoodies looking down at a metallic device beeping on the ground probably wasn’t the best thing to do. But how else do you take a nice team photo with auto-timer?