Jan 2009

The weather is starting to warm up. As we don’t get the nights cooling down till really late, its hard sleeping, so we’re resting up and relaxing in the morning. Steve took a paddle around Lake Burley Griffin. There is even a yacht club on the lake. They seem to have a very active twilight racing calendar as we see a lot of boats out often. From our new home, the banks of the river behind the Australian National Museum, we are directly over the river from the yacht club.

Today we visited Old Parliament House. Our guide was very funny and fabulously interesting. We had a great tour around the old parliament buildings and enjoyed the tid bits learned along the way. We were shocked that 300 people originally were housed in the building, and at the end of its working life, 3,000 people were jam packed into its hallways. Steve was amazed at their lack of renovations during their time of operation – from 1927 to 1988. In 70+ years no one had renovated their offices or changed furniture, not like our ministers in WA who love nothing more than redecorating their offices and purchasing Wedgwood Tea Sets for their offices. We were informed that they became attached to the furniture. They didn’t want to get rid of a desk as such an such a document was signed on it, or so and so sat it, so they became quite attached to all items of furniture, hence they have such a great display of most items made for Parliament House. Most of the construction workers and carpenters were Masons – as in Freemasons so many of the pieces of furniture show their emblems on them as well as their magnificent mathematical symbols they are renowned for in ancient history. These symbols remain through the building in fanlight windows, table and chair decorations and many wall panels.

Our tour guide Helen’s father helped build the parliament and she’s lived in Canberra all her life. We had a great discussion about Canberra’s attitude, influence and how its come of age. I mentioned I was surprised at the quality/quantity and popularity of the shops in Manuka (pronounced Manaka) , the trendy suburb Canberrites frequent. There was dress shop after dress shop selling ball gowns and even wear of the very expensive variety. Helen said Manuka was formally a village shopping block with a commercial property then a cottage and commercial property etc around a centre block. Over the years its gone up and up market. I guess as it’s the closest shopping centre to the millions of Consular Offices just around the corner in Yarralumla. We couldn’t believe the embassies when driving around there. The South African was of course, a huge cape-dutch style building. The US embassy was of course, the largest, most ostentatious, had the highest fences, highest position and most number of security entrances and cameras, the Chinese embassy was also large and very ugly. They all had their own native design influences attached to them to give them their own flavour. Its an interesting few blocks drive.

The other interesting thing Helen told us was that Canberrians have voted twice against having an ACT style State Government. Since the Federal Government forced it on Canberra, as Helen said, they were sick of hearing the Canberra people complain about all their lack of resources etc that the Howard Government created the ACT government. To fund the costs of running said government every Canberra household has to pay landtax – investment property or owner occupied. This equates to approx $5-6,000 per household. Its an incredible cost to bear, and of course its had an incredibly large negative effect on their property market. Rents are ridiculous – they make Perth look like Mandurah rents; we saw one 3x2 flashy apartment unfurnished for $1100PW. Its also pushed the prices of properties through the roof too. I wonder how people can retire in ACT as the costs are tremendous if you don’t have a large income to support them.

We retired for the afternoon to ride out the hot weather under a cool shady tree at a doggy beach. Midget had a great time making a nuisance of herself and found a golden retriever puppy even more stupid than her, so she didn’t want to play with him, she just ignored him. He didn’t seem to mind and kept trying to play with her.

Thank goodness for icypoles and a great freezer…

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.

Today we spent the entire day at the war museum. What a fabulous display. I think its one of the best museums in the world! It starts will the first world war. There are models of most of the great battles that took place. Amazing stuff. I over heard a tour guide say that each model man cost $20,000 to make cast in bronze and is very life-like. The scenes include topography, buildings, equipment, trees (or what was left of them) and machinery. He also mentioned he had an old guy through a few years back who said he remembered that scene, and started to rattle off the names of the officers in the scene. It appears that all of the scenes have been re-created from original photos.

The WWII section was even larger. Huge tanks, planes and so forth. There was a room that you entered that had a checker plate metal floor and it simulated a bomber taking off with a darkened room shaped like the insides of a plane. The screen in front played the visual footage of what the pilots saw, and then a glass screen in the floor acted like the bomb bay and opened up and then you could see the footage under the same plane. Meanwhile the speakers were playing the sounds of the engines very loudly as it would have sounded if you were a passenger, and the whole floor was vibrating as if you really were inside the plane. Really well done.

The next section was the medals section where 63 of the Victoria Crosses earned by Australian’s were displayed. Apparently the largest public collection on display in the world. Apparently the latest recipients’ VC was on its way, they were still trying to work out how to secure it properly and make a properly secure case.

Apparently they are all made out of a captured war item held in England and made up on request by the same jeweller in London each time one is awarded. Although this latest one is the first one that has been awarded since we changed over from the British system. So its not officially called a VC anymore, but is still equal to it.

We stopped for a nice lunch in the Outpost Café and continued on to the magnificent extension done to the war museum where all the large aeroplanes are kept. Steve said he made models up as a kid of most of these planes. He said the best two planes in the display were the two Messerschmitt 262 (jet) and 163 (rocket glider) both from 1945. Its amazing technology for more than 60 years ago! Still current technology in Australian aviation. That’s the most amazing part! The other item in this room was the submarine that was blown up in Sydney harbour. It had a huge chunk peeled out of it and was hanging from the wall.

Also in this room there were 3 different movies show every hour; 15 minutes past and 30 minutes past the hour. I saw 2 of the three and they were really impressive.

So after finishing this level we moved down below to the bottom floor which held the 1945 – current wars, the Boer War and special exhibit which was the last year of WWI. The current section wad really interesting. The entrance held a jeep type vehicle from the current wars that was made of fibreglass and metal. It was on display with all its garb intact, as it had driven over a landmine and had the front passenger side underside ripped out. Apparently all occupants were unscathed. The vehicle was a write off.

Inside was the Korean War. Interesting in that section was a 16 year old boy they found wandering around lost in the war. They trained him up to assist in the hospital base and later arranged for his immigration to Australia when the war was over. He was the first Korean to immigrate to Australia after the war and won much recognition for his service to the RSL and war veterans. He died in 2006.

The Vietnam war was next. The real helicopter they had sitting in a grassy field looked quite in the setting you’d imagine for this war. There were two large screens either side of it and it played footage of the helicopters flying in and dropping off personnel and taking off again. During the footage they reinacted the sounds of the events by playing the sounds of the engine again, and also blowing air around the room as if you were both on the chopper and also when it was landing. It was quite life like. You really felt like you were there!

The Peacecorp was the last section where they had the 4 peacekeeping missions that Australians were involved in as well as Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Rowanda, Somalia, East Timor and Sudan? (can’t remember the last one). They had Major General Peter Cosgrove’s most prized possession, his slouch hat, a captured sudam hussein’s personal weapon collection of a gold plated machine gun and several captured East Timorese hand made weapons that were apparently more dangerous to the people using them than who they were firing at!

It was really interesting. It still appears that Peace is unobtainable in this museum as their final quote reveals.

It was a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in this place. We finished with a walk around the wall of honour. We also viewed the unnamed soldier’s grave inside the memorial. We walked to the end and saw the last entry including the Afghanistan and Iraq wars and noticed the more famous name of Private Covco is mentioned.

Awoke to the early morning training of the AIS sculling teams being berated by their coaches via a megaphone. Its lovely seeing so much activity on a waterway that doesn’t seem to have much on it. It certainly doesn’t have boardwalks or cafes located on the water edge that we are used to in Mandurah and other waterside locations around Australia, but it is very beautiful.

Today we had to get water and empty the toilet. We found both located at the showgrounds on the outskirts of town. Also there was Cancon 2009 showing at the halls. Cancon appeared to be a boys own game playing day. This is a realm of society that I’ve never seen or even knew existed before. There were hundreds of nerds houses under one roof who’ve travelled I guess from around Australia to come and play games against each other in the national titles. Steve informs me that he and his elder brother Frank used to play for sometime 8 hours straight games such WarHammer 40000.

in view is approx one third of all game playing taking place at the event

The game takes place on a large table. There are hills trees and sometimes buildings that are placed on boards and then there are tanks, combatants and other items all with certain fire power and dice are rolled to perform functions such as firing, killing opponents, and tape measures are used to remanoeuvre tanks and personnel to certain positions. It has a language entirely its own. I understood nothing.

We then walked to the other end of the hall to the games for sale section. Here you can buy your tanks, glue and paints to construct your own set of warmongering equipment. It appears not uncommon to have a couple of thousand dollars or more of equipment per player for this (or similar) game. We saw one set of hand painted metal soldiers for some of the more traditional games, and they were $1900 for a small A4 sized tray of soldiers. Amazing stuff!

We then moved on to see the Australian National Museum. There were some really interesting exhibits, but both of us were really frustrated by the fact that it wasn’t following any plan or time frame and it was really hard for us to enjoy. The building was great. Quite new. It also had a memorial on the foreshore for that poor girl who died in 1997 when the old hospital on the site was blown up. She was over on the other side of the lake – several kms away, and was hit with some imploded rubble that killed her.

We walked around to the next point to enjoy a dinner at the one café on the foreshore followed by the fabulous fireworks for Canberra’s Australia Day celebrations. Leo Sayer was our host, who as you may know, became an Australian Citizen here in Canberra today. It was a great if not short fireworks.

Cold night but clear day. A very pleasant change from the last few months! Today we hit the Old Bus Depot Markets. What a great place. It was full of great art, craft, food and food stuffs. Had to que for 10 minutes for the ATM! It’s a popular pastime of Canberrites.

Right next door is the Canberra Glassworks. Enjoyed a fabulous free tour of the plant. ANU has a glass making course and apparently people come from all over the world to study there. The Canberra Glassworks was developed to provide a workspace and outlet for graduates to work in.

It was built in 1913 as a coal fired power station for Canberra. All the original coal hoppers and burners were all kept in place and the new studio installation has been beautifully and sympathetically added to this fabulous building. It has a real industrial feel to it with lots of wood, glass and steel everywhere. They hold classes on a regular basis in glass bead making and paperweight making.

The tour ends and allows people to enjoy a meal in the café and a tour around their two galleries with jewellery, glasses, vases and paperweights for sale. It was very professionally presented and is a credit to its organisers. Its only been open just over 12 months, but its gained a great deal of credibility in a short space of time.

Part of an old kiln on the outside of the building has been cleverly incorporated into the new building by glass. it now forms part of a gallery

We found an American girl who was doing here post grad studies at ANU and working at the gallery possibly as part of her exchange of use of facilities. She had obviously come a long way just to study some more.

Found a lovely spot on the water behind the Australian National Museum that appears to be quite campervan friendly. Its also very quiet. Our neighbours for the night...