Enlighten:Canberra

Canberra has a new festival called 'Enlighten'. From what I can see it's basically lots of events that used to exist previously only they're now all grouped together and called 'Enlighten'. Apparently it's an attempt to get people to visit Canberra at times in the year other than Floriade (the flower festival in Spring). In fairness they're also lighting up a few of Canberra's most prominent buildings at night for four nighs (hence the enlighten bit).

It's sparked a whole load of ACT revelry - I heard a lady singing Canberra's anthem on the radio yesterday (it's great) and we've had our own flag since 1993 hopefully we'll get our own currency before too long. Not bad for a town of 320,000 people.

Anyway, combined with the launch of Enlighten, this month was also the start of the annual Balloon Festival which is now an "Enlighten event". We've been the last couple of years and if you can make the early start it's always excellent when the balloons go up.

This morning was fine and still and so Audrey and I headed into town a little after 6.15am. It was still quite dark and it was excellent watching the sun come up and the balloons rise over Old Parliament House, one of Canberra's nicest buildings. There's probably 20 odd balloons - they take off about 6.30am and they're all in the air by about 7.15am.

Here's some pics;

Audrey spots 'Marie' the Questacon fairy and is dumbstruck!A giant strawberry by (new) Parliament House