Feb 2009

Had a quiet day catching up on stuff and resting. It was cooler, at least for the morning. Enjoyed a quiet swim in the lake before heading off. Only got 9kms from town and landed upon Wildbrumby Distillery. Stopped for a lovely light lunch and interesting german beers and schnaps in a lovely sculptured art covered garden.

It was really pleasant and we found a lovely horse for Bree – no feeding required and should fit in her spare room…

Arty Horse or is it Horsey Art?

Onwards and upwards we hit the hills. We then entered the yellow road marked section of the mountains. Not sure if this is where you have to wear chains on your vehicle during winter, or if its part of the National Parks areas that you have to pay to enter. We hit the toll booth and said we were travelling through so we got a free daypass. We weren’t permitted to stop in Thredbo. So when we arrived at Thredbo, we drove through it, ignoring the sign that said we had to have a pass to drive through. We did notice the magnificent road work now done to rectify the Diver death that occurred all those years ago from the landslide. You can see how fragile it must have been. A lot of money has been spent on this work. I guess that’s why there is such a fee to access the park.

Mount Kisciuszko

We headed on further up the road. When the power of the car dwindled we decided we needed to stop and let the engine cool. We spent the night overlooking Mount Kosciuszko bedside the road. It was really quiet and peaceful.

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.

With the hottest heatwave in SA and VIC history underway, and although Canberra is hotting up, we are not in any hurry to get out of Canberra. Even 37 has been an unbearable temperature for us with not being able to cool down at night. Given there is just so much to see in Canberra we really could stay for 2 weeks without any hesitation.

Today we did the New Parliament House tour. The woman was very knowledgeable and interesting, except she spoke 100 miles an hour, so you had to pay attention. The building opened on 9/5/88 taking 7 years to build. The designer Romaldo Giurgola, an Italian American, enjoyed the experience so much he emigrated to Australia.

The Apology to Australia's Indigenous Peoples'

The building was built to last the next 200 years. We forgot how many they said it was built to house, but there are usually up to 10,000 in the building on sitting days! Amazing stuff! The public areas are probably only about 5% of the building area that you can view, but the tour is impressive.

The Magna Carta

None the less for viewing: the best surviving copy of the four surviving copies Magna Carta (the beginnings of rights for the common free person, and modern laws and governments) dating to late 16th century, and I think the most beautiful document in Parliament; the Sorry Document. The script is just amazing. Its all hand coloured and calligraphy script, which in a day when people have trouble stringing a sentence together from too much texting, is incredible in itself! :-)

Parliament Roof Top

There is also magnificent pictures; including the Tom Roberts classic opening of the Federation of Australia in 1901. It took him 2½ years to complete and every person in the room has been painted with accuracy. Its also an enormous picture to boot. It was supposed to be Tom Roberts masterpiece. The one to make his name and get him some real commissions, but strangely it never did. Maybe it was because it took so long to get it on display people we’re interested anymore? I don’t know.

View from top of Parliament House over the top of the Old Parliament House through to the War Memorial

Went back to the waters’ edge to cool off.