This gorgeous pic was taken on a phone - don’t you just love technology - by year 10 Canberra Girls Grammar School student Jessie Glassock on Lake Burley Griffin during last week’s balloon spectacular.
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Jessie, who does photography as a hobby, was in the box seat in the coaches’ boat watching a rowing crew from the school train when she pulled out her phone.
"It was quite amazing to see the rowers, the beautiful sunrise and the balloons all in one shot," she told us.
Poachers Pantry ticks all the boxes
The Canberra region’s local produce and picturesque countryside will feature in a new global campaign by Tourism Australia after the national capital was left out of its last big campaign nearly two years ago.
Filming took place on Friday at the Poachers Pantry restaurant at Hall on the northern outskirts of the ACT for the Restaurant Australia campaign which will be launched in May to be broadcast in up to 20 international markets.
Tourism Australia chief marketing officer Nick Baker said the Restaurant Australia campaign was in response to the growing demand globally for food and wine to be part of the travel experience.
The scenes at Poachers Pantry will show an American couple sampling local produce at the restaurant, smokehouse and Wily Trout Wines run by the Bruce family.
"Restaurant Australia is all about bringing together passionate locals, breathtaking landscapes and the freshest of produce to demonstrate to the world what makes Australia’s food and wine experiences so unique and distinctive," Mr Baker said.
"The wonderful family-owned and run Poachers Pantry certainly ticks all of those boxes and will do a great job of sharing one of many compelling chapters in Australia’s food and wine story."
The ACT section of the campaign – likely to be broadcast online and on television - will be joined by other foodie scenes from around the nation such as catching a water taxi to Quay restaurant in Sydney and a seafood lunch on Hamilton Island in Queensland.
The new scenes are an update of the lavish There’s Nothing Like Australia television ad launched by Tourism Australia in June, 2012. Canberra was left out of that ad altogether.
The priority markets for the latest foodie tourism campaign are New Zealand, China, the United Kingdom, the United States and Singapore.
Poachers Pantry owner Susan Bruce said her family was proud to play a part in the new campaign.
"At Poachers Pantry, we are all about the love of good food and the sharing of it with family and friends," she said. "So we are really excited to invite the world’s foodies to enjoy the sensational combination of our smoked meats matched to our wines in a stunning rural location.”
Thinking out loud
The first director of the National Museum of Australia, Dawn Casey, returns to Canberra next week for a special debate involving some of the country’s prominent thinkers.
They will be debating the proposition that Australia doesn’t need Women’s History Month, which runs during March, taking in International Women’s Day.
Dr Casey, (pictured) now the chair of the Indigenous Land Corporation, will be joined by journalist Anne Summers, former Australian Young Historian of the Year Alix Biggs, ANU deputy vice-chancellor Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, Australian Historical Association president Professor Marilyn Lake and the Manning Clark Professor of History at the ANU Professor Angela Woollacott.
The debate is at 6pm on Wednesday at the Albert Hall. The entry cost of $15 ($12 concession) includes a reception following the debate. Advance bookings can be made at www.trybooking.com/DVGO.
Hughes throws a party for its 50th birthday
Did you know leafy, central Hughes used to be known as North Cooma, so far-flung was it regarded in its early days? (The tag was later appropriated by southern parts of Tuggeranong.) Or that early residents were paid incentives to live there? Hard to believe given its sought-after status today. Or that it was the first suburb in Canberra to get wheelie bins?
All these marvellous bits and pieces have been unearthed by Hughes resident Jenny Tyrrell who is writing a history of the suburb to celebrate its 50th birthday this year.
The Woden Valley suburb was officially "opened" on May 9, 1964 by then Minister for the Interior Doug Anthony, although it was gazetted in September, 1962 and by October, 1963 had 50 families living there.
The Party at the Shops at Hughes on Friday will mark the milestone with a massive birthday cake, musical performances and the launch of the Hughes History Project.
This photograph shows the suburb in its infancy in 1964, looking south from Jensen Street to Groom Street, with Mt Taylor in the background, the absence of trees noticeable.
Mrs Tyrrell said the National Capital Development Commission built 11 houses in Hughes for senior public servants and Doug Anthony lived in one of them, at 151 Kent Street, and his children went to the local primary school, which opened in January, 1964. The local pharmacy has been a mainstay of the shops, despite a big fire in 1999 gutting it and the newsagency.
Mrs Tyrrell said The Canberra Times noted as the suburb took shape that "a certain pioneering spirit was needed" by its residents as they settled in what was regarded as the sticks.
She hopes the history project will be finished by the end of the year. She plans to sell the booklet to raise funds to support patients with Primary Immune Deficiencies and research into the rare conditions. Her son has an immune deficiency.
"Hughes is extra special," she told us. "There are a lot of original residents still here and a lot of people who attended the first day of school."
The Hughes Party at the Shop will be from 5.30am to 1pm on Friday, starting with a live broadcast by 666 ABC Canberra.
Snapshots of life in the fast lane
When you’re photographing Rebel Wilson, you may as well go for over the top.
Former Canberran Michelle Day, now based in Los Angeles, has this wonderful pic of the Australian actress in the new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, PROMO: Portraits from Prime Time.
She graduated with a diploma of photography from the then Reid TAFE, got her break at Capital 7 in Canberra and worked for the Seven Network including three years as the on-set photographer for Home and Away. Michelle has been based in LA for more than 20 years, specialising in celeb pics.
She counts Seal and Keith Urban among her favourite subjects and recalls being on assignment in Monaco with Olivia Newton-John and having dinner with legendary photographer Helmut Newton and his wife June. As you do. "It’s just incredible the kind of people you are put in the same room with," she said.
Michelle, 50, married to fellow photographer Rupert Thorpe who is the son of the former British politician Jeremy Thorpe, is back in town for the exhibition opening, staying at her family home in Aranda with her mum Dorothy, sleeping in "the same single bed I had as a teenager". She says being authentic and grounded in LA has helped her survive in a cutthroat town.
"Not to blow my own trumpet but I’ve developed the skills to disarm most people and I think that’s key to any successful shoot," she said.
What’s on
- The 2014 Autumn Antique and Collectables Fair, a major fundraiser for the Rotary Club of Canberra City, continues at the Albert Hall on Saturday (10am to 5.30pm) and Sunday from 10am to 4pm. Entry is $7 ($5 concession). Children 14-years and under are free.
- The Charny Carny is on Saturday from noon to 6pm on the community oval at the corner of Lhotsky and Cartwright streets, Charnwood. Rides, wrestlers, sidehow alley, face painting, mascot race, food and drink and more.