Canberra – Day 5

Today we visited the brand new National Portrait Gallery followed by the National Gallery. Wow! What another great collection of Australian iconic art and artefacts. The National Gallery was beautifully modern and the entrance housed the http://www.abc.net.au/tv/myfavouriteaustralian/ competition. It was light hearted and funny. It then moved around in chronological order, as we like it to, from Colonisation through to modern day famous Australians. Very well put together and really interesting tid bits on each of the pictures on the wall. There was the death mask of Ned Kelly, a tapestry of Dame Elizabeth Murdoch who turns 100 this week, and many many others.

We then went to the very impressive Hyatt Hotel for High Tea. This is an apparently must do in Canberra. The Hyatt Hotel, formally the Canberra Hotel was built by the government in 1927. It was originally called the Canberra Hostel to house visitors to Canberra as the government had no where to put them up when people arrived. It’s a beautiful art deco building with a not very imposing front entrance.

Its filled with light wells and is mainly one storey high. The main lobby, café and restaurant form the large part at the front that you see when you walk in. At both the front and back sections of this main building, there are (now enclosed) walkways heading out in a D shape. Off these walkways there are long single level blocks of approx 10 rooms or a small double storey suite (could possibly have been dormitories in its previous incarnation). These walkways forms two large courtyards with footpaths and gardens with a large tree in the centre. Perfect symmetry and gave a really pleasurable and relaxed feel to it. The government ran the operations till the late 70s and it became a storage area for government papers till it was leased to the Hilton in 1988. The Hilton have done a fabulous refurbishment of the property. Totally in keeping with the style of the building. They’ve added a horrible 3 storey section to the rear but it doesn’t impact on the original building as it goes down a level at the back so its no taller than the front section.

High tea consisted of a glass of lovely champagne followed by a magnificent hot and cold, sweet and savoury buffet. The food was magnificent. And of course lots of lovely tea!

The door men have to wear these really funny 30s looking golf caddy outfits! Really funny stuff. This door man said it was only interesting when they were sent out to the airport to pick someone up. He said he'd get lots of funny looks!

View from Red Hill looking north over Parliament House and War Memorial in the background.