A visit to Australia in November 2016, turned sad on election night
Author’s note: Four years ago I traveled to Australia during the 2016 election, and was at a bar in downtown Canberra watching the results come in from the far side of the globe. As the 2020 election nears, I retrieved my journal from November 8–9, 2016, and offer it here as a cautionary note…in the hope that the outcome will not be the same.
Wednesday, November 9, 2016 (still Tuesday, November 8 in the U.S.)
Bungendore, New South Wales, Australia
It’s 6 a.m. on a rainy, dull blue-gray dawn in Bungendore, Australia. The cockatoos and magpies are squawking and muttering in the trees. Small mobs of kangaroos patrol the damp brush on the outskirts of town. Across this bedroom community 30 miles east of Canberra, Australians are beginning their routines for the day. After brekkie (breakfast), a quick check on the weather (showers, temps in the teens centigrade — about 60-degrees Fahrenheit), and a scramble to get their kids off to school, commuters climb into their cars (left-hand drive) and head into the capital city.
A late spring morning like any other in Oz…except it’s not. Not for Australians. Because today, 10,000 miles away, on the far side of the international date line…
