So after being in the air for barely an hour, I spent an hour getting from Canberra airport to my destination. just a couple of kilometres away. It seems that two hundred people landing simultaneously is enough to flood the taxi system. And when I did get a cab, I shared with two other people who were also from government departments on government business.

A lot of people seem apologetic for not knowing Canberra very well, as if not knowing your adminsitrative capital is like not knowing your country. Canberra itself doesn't seem to have those qualms: everyone's an expat from some other state, and by and large it's content to be unknown. The feeling I get here is that most of Canberra thinks that when you get serious, you come to Canberra.