About two weeks ago, on a Saturday afternoon, we were pretty much driving aimlessly on the road. In our mind was trying to find a place to just stop by and get a bit fresh air or have a little walk. But guess what, we ended up landing in Bungendore, a small country town about 20 minutes drive from Queanbeyan, a town that we have passed by so many times but never ever really stopped for a cup of coffee.

Funny thing is that my impression about Bungendore is such a contradiction of what I heard from other people or from those colourful pamphlets prepared for tourists. They all say Bungendore is a quite attractive village town best known for its wineries, a diverse array of galleries specialising in fine art, leather ware, crafts and photography (by the way, I did have a colleagues who told me that her ex had a photographic gallery up there), and it’s been considered to be a good outing spot to grab a cup of coffee for many Canberra people during the weekend time.

Me? I’ve never seen those things. Every time I passed by, I was on the way to the coast and I was too rushing to look. The only thing I noticed every time was that big, ugly, green roof rural supply market for farming industry, and I always wondered where the cafes and all the trendy shops were hiding?

That afternoon, we finally got to see them all. It was on the main street that we found all these little shops lining one next to another, books, hand sewn, soaps, baby wears, patchwork, wood crafts, leather shop, antiques, gift shops and in the middle, on one side of the street, was the town square with a open space to accommodate some restaurants, café shop and their customers.

We spent the most time in Leather Shop, attempting to get some cool stuff home but eventually decided that there was nothing we really had to buy. However, we started to warmed up and enjoy the visit to Bungendore. I

n the next following hour, we visited the next door antique shop. Apart from the smell, I found it really a shame that people call the stuff in the shop “ANTIQUE”. I really don’t think there are any antiques in this country. I must be very mean to say this, but 200 years history of a country? What antique do you expect to see?

However, there were so many old Chinese stuff piled in the store, from chests, boxes, sculptures to paintings…I don’t know where they got those stuff, which really reminded me the antique market in Beijing, Pan Jia Yuan. I wondered if it would be the same.

A little sketch work afterwards. The scanner is awful as it transferred to PDF initially. All the colour details and good elements had lost in scanning. It didn’t affect me as we still enjoyed the trip. Just hope you enjoy my beginner’s drawing