16th October, 2014
This week we will be
getting our culture fix and the first place we visit is the National Museum of
Australia. This is a modern building
with (we think) the structure representing a giant lizard. We walk past the Garden of Australian Dreams
to the main entrance. The garden is made
up of maps and symbols where every step equates to 100 kilometres across the
continent.
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| The Garden of Australian Dreams |
In the foyer some
different modes of transport are on display with anything relating to flying
immediately attracting Wok’s attention.
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| Flying Machines in the foyer |
The museum is a place
that celebrates the Australian people, the places we live and past events. From the First Australians (Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islanders) to the modern day – there are stories to be told and
lessons to be learned. We wander through
the galleries. Sometimes we run across
objects of our early childhood
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| The first holden model on display with a wagon and mining shovel |
and sometimes we run
across things that once roamed the land long before man set foot on the
Australian continent.
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| A 'diprotodon' - sort of glad he doesn't roam the countryside now |
The museum is located
on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin and from its windows we catch views of the
lake.
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| Views of Lake Burley Griffin from the museum |
We take our time
checking out each of the galleries until our little brains are on overload. Too
much information can lead to brain freeze you know! It’s back to the van for a late afternoon
tea and a brain break.
Another day – another
culture hit. It’s off to the National
Gallery of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery. Canberra has only recently converted many of
its parking areas (including shopping areas) to paid parking – so we are
getting used to carrying around two dollar and dollar coins for the pay
stations. The parking at these two
galleries is no exception and it is hard trying to work out how much you need
to pay as how on earth do we know how long we will be. Honestly – the stress is just too much to
bear!
As no cameras are
allowed in these galleries we are unable to post any happy snaps but we could
take a photo of the sculptures outside.
So here is a one of a bunch of six foot pears. Why?
Because it was there and we liked it!
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| A bunch of pears |
As for the paintings
and objects on display inside the buildings … well there were some we liked,
some we didn’t like and some we are still not sure about.
We decided it was
time for a bit of a drive in the country so we headed west out of Canberra and
headed for Tidbinbilla Nature Reserve, passing Cotter Dam on the way. We stopped in at the Canberra Deep Space
Communication Complex
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| Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex |
and were pleasantly
surprised to find a small but jam-packed information centre with a theatrette
and some hands on displays.
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| 'Wok' the astronaut |
We were amazed to
discover that there were still some rovers trundling around on Mars. These little rovers were only supposed to
have a life span of 90 days but much to the scientists surprise (and delight)
they are still active and gathering scientific information ten years later.
A large digital
display was counting down the days, hours and minutes to the landing of a probe
on a comet streaking through our solar system.
Glen (who works at
the facility) saw our interest in the countdown and explained the way in which
the probe was to latch itself onto the comet.
As this type of landing has never been attempted before the scientists
were crossing their fingers and hoping all would go according to plan. We asked Glen lots of questions about this
comet and also about another comet that had (only the night before) scraped
past Mars causing the whole complex to do an all-nighter. This maybe explained why Glen was really
excited about the whole ‘Mars and Comet’ thing as countless cups of ‘keep
awake’ coffee will do that to you. We
spent a couple of hours at the complex and even had a great meal in the
café. We do like ‘space’ stuff and find
it fascinating. We’ve had a thoroughly
enjoyable day!
The following morning
we were sitting in the van when a knock came on the door. Wok opened the door to find our friends Ken
and Margaret Smith standing outside.
What a wonderful surprise! They
had just checked into the caravan park and were on a site on the other side of
the amenities block. They were off to
the lookout at Black Mountain and were wondering if we wanted to go. As we hadn’t yet been to Black Mountain we
quickly got ready and everyone hopped in Mitzi and off we went. The viewing area is part of the Telstra Tower
on Black Mountain and only a few kilometres from the centre of Canberra
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| Telstra Tower at Black Mountain |
From the tower one
can get a 360 degree view of Canberra and the surrounding countryside.
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| Canberra from Black Mountain |
After taking in the
view everyone was keen to have a coffee and the first choice was to find
something in the CBD but Margaret and Robyn decided that as they hadn’t been to
Queanbeyan for over 40 years it might be nice to take a drive and find a coffee
shop there. Queanbeyan is a town in New
South Wales but is only a few kilometres south of Canberra so it was no time at
all before we were pulling into a parking space in the main street of Canberra
and as luck would have it just outside a quaint coffee shop which had delicious
coffee, superb hot chocolate and scrummy pastries. Great afternoon tea – great company!
We took the scenic
route back into Canberra and after a bit of going around in circles found the
National Police Memorial.
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| National Police Memorial |
This memorial on the
shores of Lake Burley Griffin commemorates all serving police men and women who
have died. We have come to see the
plaque for Paul Daley (a friend) who passed away in 1995.
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| Ken, Wok and Margaret search for the plaque. |
After a bit of a
search we finally found the plaque.
The memorial has a
wonderful view of the lake with the Carillon not far away – a nice peaceful
place for us to remember an old friend.
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| View towards the lake from the National Police Memorial |
It’s also a great
spot for a photo op before heading back to the caravan park.
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| Ken and Margaret |
In the morning Ken
and Margaret are off to visit the War Memorial while we head out to have a look
at Questacon – Australia’s National Science and Technology Centre. Again we are confronted with the problem of
paid parking. How long do we pay
for? How long will we be? It’s sort of like the ‘chicken and the egg’
thing. In the foyer we are greeted by a
‘Shakespeare sprouting’ robot.
We wind our way up a
spiral ramp to the top of the building and then slowly make our way back to the
ground floor stopping in at all the galleries along the way. The displays are set up for a real ‘hands on’
experience with perception and illusion sometimes getting in the way of
scientific facts. We liked the ‘tornado
maker’
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| A tornado in the making |
and Wok had fun
making smoke signals with the ‘smoke machine’.
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| Wok has fun with the 'smoke machine' |
A few hours later we
were all ‘scienced’ out and as a plethora of schoolkids invaded the galleries
and milled all around us we hightailed it out of the place. Phew!
That was a close call. We nearly
became honourary grandparents to way too many anklebiters.
That evening we
picked Ken and Margaret up from their campsite and went to Ainslie Football
Club for dinner. The club had been
recommended to us by a guy in the office at the showgrounds and we would have
to say that it surpassed all expectations.
The food was good and of course the company delightful. In the morning we waved goodbye to Ken and
Margaret as they headed off to Goulburn to visit some more friends.
Well our time in
Canberra is coming to an end. We will
spend the weekend relaxing before checking out.
We have no idea where we are going next so we will look forward to our
next blog to see where we end up …
