Day 119

Day 119 Canberra

We had another great day today, we went to the National Portrait Gallery. It is a gallery just of

Yunupingu

Princess Mary

portraits. The building is situated next to the national Art Gallery and in front of the High Court. We drove into the underground parking and took the lift up to the gallery. I am still taken aback as to how easy it is to get the Beast around the place. We went into the gallery and started going around. There is a real mixture of portraits here. You have the contemporary photos of current people such as Russel Crowe and Rachel Griffiths and some of the earliest such as Captain Cook and early Governors. They range on different media from the traditional oil and canvas to photographs and water paint on wood or ivory. Each portrait has a story board next to it explaining who the person is and what they have done. They also have busts of people in Marble or bronze or plaster, such as Ned Kelly’s

Me the Art critic

Maureen - Look what I made with play dough!

death mask. The gallery is huge and it took us until about 3:30 to get through all the galleries. Maureen had taken a few pictures before we realised that taking pictures was banned so check out our bootleg pictures. During our day there were a number of school groups going through with guides to help them.

Once done there, we went across to the High Court building. The doorman there was fantastic and opened the door for us. He gave Maureen a quick run down as to what we could do. There are 3 courts here and there is this huge empty building. The foyer is cavernous to say the least. They have ramps going all the way up and down a floor or two. Court 1 is the Constitution court where they have 7 judges presiding, courts 2 & 3 are for Civil and Penal cases. They only have 5 judges and are really about deciding if the system has not been followed or is prejudiced. They do not re-run the case, just

The High Court

Maureen in the High Court

listen to legal arguments. The building has these huge ramps that go all the way up to the top, so we, well me, took off up to the top. The floors are all carpeted so you could see where I went.

The Beast made it to the top up 4 sets of ramps and the court was closed. There was a worker there and Maureen batted the old eyes and the guy agreed to open it up for her and gave her the guided tour. From there we went down a couple of ramps and the court  there was open and the usher

Me in the High Court

Going down the ramps

gave us a chat about it. Apparently there was a sitting tomorrow but the best one she reckoned was next Wednesday when the full court sits to listen to the challenge on same sex marriages. Whilst it would be nice, I think it would be too long to wait. They apparently sit for a week then retire for a week to do the paper work and then sit again, so we may catch a civil case later this week. From there we went back down to the foyer. The doorman was now a doorwoman and I noticed another set of ramps going down and asked where they went and she said downstairs to the other entrance, so off I went. Downhill is fast and it was rubber flooring so it sounded like I was laying rubber all the way.

Me way down the bottom

On the way up

The doorwoman was just shaking her head and laughing. Back up I came and out we went.

We had a couple of hours left, so we went to the Australian Art Gallery next door. The lovely lady gave us a quick rundown and a map and we adjourned to the members lounge for a cuppa and to set a plan. Maureen wanted to see the Monet painting and I wanted to see the Albert Namatjira paintings. We both set off and agreed to meet back at the entrance before 5. I went passed the Monet and it was okay, but I got to Albert’s work where there were real paintings. The scenes were perfect and were from the MacDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs where we had just been and you could clearly place them. I went around

Where we have been

the area of indigenous paintings with the dot paintings and there were some I would take. They have this huge collection of Western Desert paintings and you could see that apart from a few, it was “you paint it, we will take it”. There were no stories, just shapes.

We both ended up at the Sidney Nolan – Ned Kelly collection and after a brief look had to leave. We had to go back via the Portrait Gallery to get our parking validated (free) and load up the Beast. Back at camp I was contemplating they tyre on the Beast that keeps going down aand in fact we had stopped at a Masters on the way back to see if we could find a spare tube but to no avail. Maureen suggested we get one of those flat tyre inflation cans, bit of a Doh moment. We went down to target here to see if they had one in their car section but to no avail. Maureen then went off hunting and gathering for dinner and as I went out, I noticed a servo over the road and low and behold, got one there, inflated the Beast’s tyre and hey presto, Bob’s your Aunties best friend.

Tomorrow, not sure yet.