Canberra – Jindabyne

With 38 degree day its becoming really difficult to do things. Especially as poor precious has to be somewhere. Usually under a tree with a water bowl. She just isn’t cooling down at night. Poor thing.

Today we visited the National Archives. We really enjoyed all the fabulous anecdotes on strange incidents (UFO sightings), interesting people, classified documents (recently de-classified), and the most famous documents the Federation of Parliament signed by the Queen, and Acts of Parliament relating to changes to our constitution moving us closer to becoming a republic such as 1932 and 1986; all on display in the Federation display.

There is also a great library at the end of the building. There are people there only too willing to help you find files on family members you are searching for. I found my grandfather’s war service records. They had 31 pages in all on his file. Including one letter returned to his then girlfriend of the day. It was really interesting. They also scanned the envelope front and back. They keep everything! Its all free to access all information that’s online and they are scanning more and more documents to try and get every publically available document available online in the future. They have over 3kms of storage sheds outside of Canberra where all the info is stored in archival approved storage facilities. Quite remarkable. Their website if you’re interested in searching some family history is www.naa.gov.au.

Since it was now lunchtime and we were just around the corner from our favourite eating place in Canberra, Ironbark before heading South to the cooler weather. The hot weather that has just beaten Adelaide and Melbourne to a pulp was now heading north and inland.

We did several laps around the industrial area on the way out trying to find my brothers’ recommendation of Fuelset to no avail. We headed south.

Landscapes south of Canberra

Arrived at Cooma late afternoon. The countryside south of Canberra is rugged and attractive, if not, still dry. The mountains started to rise out of the landscape. The hills are getting higher and higher. Its still really dry but so incredibly hot. It was still too hot to stop, so we drove on to Jindabyne. It was finally a little cooler and we were looking forward to a good nights’ sleep.

Granite Outcrops

Apart from a bunch of drunk kids making a racket till 3am, I then relocated back to another quieter spot for the rest of the morning.