Day 123

Day 123 Canberra

Plinth of stones

Parlimentary zone edge

Today we went to Old Parliament House. The building was erected back in the 1930’s as a temporary building and was replaced in 1988 with the new parliament house. We started by parking under the new Parliament House as the parking is free and we knew about it. We unloaded the Beast and then walked down the grassed area to the old building. On the way down there is this plinth there with all these old stones, you know the ones where His Hon laid this stone and so on, but they do not say what they belonged to so we assume that these were buildings that were demolished to make way for the new building (notice I am using new building instead of new Parliament House – saves on typing using

On our way to the old building

old Parlimentary Gardens

capitals!) and they could not throw them away so they remounted them here so family members can still see them I suppose because there is nothing on the plinth to say why they are here. It is still an impressive building, the old building, but is very dated. To get in I had to go under the front steps to a service entry that has a service lift platform to get me up to the ground floor area, but not the main entrance. The lady here was lovely and obviously loves her job and we chatted away. Whilst I was going up, she took Maureen off to show her were the next lift was and that they had a wedding happening at 3 and chat, chat, chat. They apparently do a number of weddings here and the courtyard gardens are perfect for it.

Maureen at the gardens

Wedding set out

We headed off into the building, the front areas look good but some of the back areas are looking a bit shabby and in need of attention, but the public do not see those, just the disabled. The building must have looked very grand in its time and was originally built to house 500 people. By the time it was replaced, it had 3,000 people there. The Prime Minister’s office is a little room with a warren of pokey little offices around it. You obviously did not do some of these jobs for the views, definitely for the prestige. The rooms are all wood panelled and the halls are a narrow, but the Beast managed without leaving too many marks of our passing. As we went through, we caught up with some of the wedding guests on a tour, I don’t know if they get one free as part of the wedding or not, be we caught up with one in the Senate room and listened in. The ministers used to get offices, but back benchers didn’t neither did the senators, so the original design of the desks in the big rooms had a wide desk and ink wells. The

Prime Ministers receptionist

Prime Ministers support staff area

idea was that they would use the desks as their work area so they did not get an office and they would stay in the rooms for the debates and stuff.

The two big rooms are pretty much as they left them and you can sit in the seats, but a few in each room have been glassed off and are the original seats and desks as they were built for heritage reasons. I loved the fact that when it was opened. The Parlimentary Heritage Group in England made the original Speakers Chair and it has wood from Westminster as well as from Nelson’s Victory in it. Then after the war when they were replacing their Speakers chair, they used our chair as the model and we made it out of Australian timber and gave it to them. So next time you see their parliament on TV you know their chair is younger than ours and it

Prime Ministers Office

Prime Ministers little Office

is Australian.

The building is very dated in its furnishings but does give off the air of elegance and power. It is a bit like when you go into the Weld Club in Perth as I did once upon a while ago, it has that feeling of age gone by and you do feel like you have stepped back 50 years in time. This is like that in that you do feel like you have stepped back in time. We would have more pictures but the camera ran out of battery. We wended our way through the displays until it was 5 and they shut down. The lovely lady showed us out and off we went. As we were leaving, the wedding guests were getting little show bags so we stood nearby hoping we might get one, but they said no – sad face.

We walked back up to the new building and back to Trude. We have obviously been in Canberra too long as we found our way out of town without the aid of a map and back to Girt. Once back we decided to go into Queanbeyan as they said they had some markets on, so in we went and there were 7 or 8 stalls, so done in no time.

Day 122

Day 122 Canberra

Today we did the National Museum. We drove in and it is tucked away on this tiny crook in the lake with another building that just has AIATSIS on it, very suss and I have yet to look it up to see what it was. We unloaded the Beast and headed into the museum. The front lady welcomed us and gave us maps and we went through the front foyer displays and one of them is a wagon that was made by a guy who went around the country towns sharpening saws and generally fixing stuff. It is an absolute hoot. It has machines on it everywhere, bits of this and that stuck on and they still have over 1000 items from it in storage! We went into the café as looked at the maps to make a plan. We left there and went into the entry for the displays and the guides there grabbed us and told us to go into the revolving theatrette. It is a small theatre that showcases what is on in the museum. As per normal there were busloads of kiddies around so the guide got me in first so I could position the Beast and then got the kids in. the theatre revolves as it goes through the presentation and when you finish, you are facing an exit the takes you into the museum.

The museum is spread over 3 floors with most of their stuff on the middle one. There is a heavy

Saw sharpener

Saw sharpener tractor

accent on indigenous displays which is fine as they have displays from all round Australia, and you cannot say that about the rest of the museum. It is very heavy on the East coast. Western Australia does not really appear until they go to mining. Like the Art Gallery, they have a colonisation section where they show stuff from early colonies such as NSW, Vic, Qld, SA and Tas but apparently we did not have an early colony in WA as there is nothing there! Spoilt the whole effect but I suppose just because we pay for most of it, you cannot expect to have a fair share. That gripe aside, it was not bad

Old Melbourne Cups

Platapus skeleton

display. They have some really cool stuff like Cook’s canon, his small magnifying glass, some weapons from bushrangers, early settlers memoirs and items and so it goes. They have a great little film on images of Australia that has glimpses of our past that have been recorded on film and starts before WWI and through to present.

We spent the whole day there and finished when they threw Maureen out the door at 5. I spent the last

Tasmanian Tiger head

Water Buffalo catcher

little while down on Lake Burley Griffin watching the yacht club do sailing lessons and a few of the more experienced members have a fly about. There was this guy who had a NACRA there who was just hooning around on the light breeze but the lake is so narrow that no sooner had he got it up on one hull, he had to turn around and go back.

It is hard to put in words what we saw so I have put it in pictures instead. The museum is great, it is free and there is enough to keep you busy for a day.

Diprotodon skeleton

Shark Jaws

Fashion in the ages

How to put on a dress with bussle

Cook's magnifier

Child proof shears

Convict tokens

Dive gear of diver finding Flinders anchor

Revolutionary harvestor

Phar Lap's Heart - ewww

Outside area

Outside area

Outside area

Early cars

Oldest operational steam boat- not working

Yachts on lake Burley Griffin

Day 121

Day 121 Canberra

We had a slowish start today. Maureen got into some washing and I went down to the bank. We

View of Airport Mt Ainslie

View of canberra

decided today to go to Mt Ainslie Lookout and have a view of the capital. The lookout is the highest overlooking Canberra and it has 360 degree views. You get a birds eye view of the capital and there is a board with the original plane shown on it and a picture of the view in 1930 and all there is was the Church in the middle of this huge plain, no river or lake and off towards the back is the interim parliament house, now called old parliament house. You compare the view now to the plan and you can see how

View of suburbia

View of farms

they stuck to it and even do so today. The Griffins were some futuristic viewers. The day was spectacular. There was not a cloud in the sky and the temperature was in the high 20’s maybe low 30’s, no wind, just perfect. There was a school group up there as well but no big issue. We had lunch there and sat and enjoyed the view.

Hellenic Memorial

Anyones son Memorial

From the Lookout we made our way back down to the War Memorial as we wanted to o the ANZAC Parade walk. The road leading up to the Memorial is called ANZAC Parade and on both sides are memorials to different services and campaigns. There are officially 11 memorials and as you walk down one side you see some and then up the other is another set. We did them in numerical order. The 1st was the

Korean war Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

Australian Hellenic memorial. It covers the campaign in WWII in Greece and Crete. Our troops held the pass where the Spartans once held the Persians – you know the film 300, but due to air supremacy the Germans pushed us back until we were on Crete then they invaded there and captured a swag of soldiers. The 2  ^nd was the Australian Army memorial that covered the army since 1899 to today and the 7 pillars illustrated 7 major conflicts and is also known as the “anyones Sons” as anyones son could be called up and serve in the services. Obviously this and the others were erected before women took a more prominent role in our services, so some inscriptions seem a bit sexist now.

Maureen with her poppy

Me on ANZAC parade

The 3^rd was the Korean War Memorial that honoured those who fought in the Korean War. It has a forrest of steel poles in it with members of the services who fought there, navy army and airforce and one pole for each who died. We joined the war in 1950 after North Korea invaded South Korea and captured 90% of the country. UN stepped in and we captured back

Mounted Soldiers Memorial

Original horses head now Animal Memorial

90% of the peninsular back before China stepped in settled at the 26^th parallel. The 4^th is the Vietnam Memorial and it is a very modernist style memorial to those who fought in Vietnam. It has a Granite circle suspended over the centre and in it are the names of who did not make it home. There are also seats nearby with the names of those who are still listed as Missing in Action. The 5^th is the Mounted Corp Memorial. It has an unusual history in that it covers the troops who served in the desert in the 1916 to 1918, mostly mounted, Light

Left Handle

Me halfway

Horse, Camels, Cavalry units but it was originally erected in Port Said in 1917 and was paid for by the troops themselves who all donated a days pay in 1917 to pay for it. It was destroyed in the Suez Conflict – 1956 and a section of it, a horses head now stands in the gardens of the memorial as a memorial to all the animals who served and died in conflicts. In 1962, 2 copies were made of it and one was erected in Albany as that was where the servicemen wanted it as it was there gathering point before leaving Australia, and

Maureen half way

Right Handle

the other is here.

Rats of Tobruk memorial

Airforce memorial

At the end of the road and one on each side of the road is the ANZAC Memorial or New Zealand Memorial. It has these two arches. One on each side of the Parade and the epitaph, we each held a handle, indicating our cooperation and sharing of the load during conflict. The 7^th is the Rats of Tobruk Memorial. In December 1941 22,000 troops, of which 14,000 were Australian, held out against Rommel and the Desert Corp. the memorial was again originallyerected during the campaign but was destroyed during the war. They salvaged the Marble stone with the inscription on it that they stole from the steps of the local Post Office in Tobruk and brought it home and there it is. The 8 ^th was the RAAF Memorial to the airmen. The RAAF is the

Nurses Memorial

Navy Memorial

3^rd oldest independent Airforce in the world and is only 3 years younger than the RAF. The 9^th is the Royal Australian Nurses. They were formed the same year as the army in 1899 to go to the Boer War and have served in all conflicts since. The memorial is possibly the best or at least the most original as it is made of glass and is lit at night. The shape of it depends on what you read. The Memorial says it is the shape of 2 hands, the brochure says the artist made it to resemble the female curves! Depends which was the most politically correctess I suppose.

The 10^th is the RAN memorial and I must say it looks just like it was imported from Russia, real

Ataturk with Pine tree

Weary Dunlop

Soviet style blocky statue. It might look better covered in water as it was designed, but even still…. The last is the Ataturk Memorial to Kemal Ataturk the Turkish general who fought us in Gallipoli and who became the president of modern Turkey. It represents the good will that existed between the two countries despite the war, or more correctly, because of the war and how we fought it. There are pine trees around the memorial grown from the pine tree at Lone Pine. Lone Pine was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the campaign and was named after the lone pine that grew there until it was blown to smitherines. After the war they revisited the sight as a group of Australian troops had disappeared there during the campaign and no one knew what had happened to them after they were

Simpson and his Donkey

Just got to find a trailer now

cut off. Turns out they fought to the last man and the Turks sealed off the dugout as their grave and they were all still there. They recovered some pine seeds from the soil around it and one of the seedlings grew at the memorial so they grew some more for this memorial, fascinating stuff.

Ships Bridge and Gun

Captured German Rail Gun

We made it back in time for a cuppa and a quick walk around the outside of the museum. There are Guns from a couple of Ships, HMAS Australia (cruiser that was struck by 3 Kamakaze planes in the Philippines) and HMAS Adelaide a Destroyer. They also have a Centurion Tank there! They also have the huge barrel from a railroad gun that the troops captured from the Germans in WWI and brought home as a war prize. As it was just on 5, Maureen went in for the last post ceremony, I didn’t as I did not want to

Last Post ceremony

have the guys get all excited again, turns out the ramps were there already for some others, but never mind, I could hear it from outside.

Well the day was except to drive home and get some fuel and I think we are off to the Leagues Club for dinner.