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.

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