11^th November, Tuesday

For once on this blog I am not going to give you a History lesson of our Nations Capital, for starters you probably all know it and secondly if I posted it here it would take up about 4 pages, which I am sure that you wouldn’t read anyway, HAHAHA and Bruce, you will need to google this one for yourself xxxxx. We took the secondary road to Queanbeyan which was a good idea as there are some picturesque little towns on the way and some great scenery.  We stopped off in a gorgeous little town called ‘Bungendore’ (sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings) for breakfast.  I didn’t do my usual packed sandwiches (or as they say here “samiches”) and flask of coffee, instead we had a healthy pie and cool drink from the local bakery and it was yummy. Queanbeyan is really a suburb of Canberra although it is in NSW.  It’s strange because on the way you cross the border into the ACT for about 5 minutes and then you cross the border again into NSW and then you cross the border again for Canberra into the ACT again.  I guess that’s par for the course for our Capital (keep the masses confused). So technically Queanbeyan is in NSW and Canberra is in the ACT.  It’s like Midland and Perth being in 2 different states, bizarre.  The caravan park is in the hussle and bussle of town.  It’s on the river though which is quite nice, but it is in the middle of things.  There is a huge shopping centre next door which I can walk to which makes Ralph very happy as I can go there on my own.  Never mind though that the caravan park is in a busy spot as we are here to see how our tax dollars are spent and to see the museums, which by the way are all free. We have the best internet and TV coverage here and I wonder why?  Ralph is going to see the war museum tomorrow which we have been told is the most amazing place and you need just on a day to see it all. I will stay with Hugo but on Thursday he is booked into doggie day care and we will visit Parliament house, the war memorial, art galleries and all the other sites that Canberra has to offer.  We might even find time to fit in a nice lunch. It’s quite warm again today but not over the top and apparently the temperatures go down quite a bit at night which suits us for getting a good nights sleep.

12^th November, Tuesday

Ralph went to the war memorial and war museum in Canberra this morning. I stayed behind with Hugo and painted.  He said that it was the best war museum that he has ever seen.  Apparently the War memorial/museum in Canberra is world renowned and everyone I have spoken to raves about it. The photos from today were all taken by Ralph.  We will go and see the sights tomorrow as Hugo goes into doggie daycare.  The weather is getting hot so he will be better off there.  It is supposed to be 30 degrees tomorrow and 37 degrees on Friday, I thought it was supposed to be cooler here.

13^th November, Wednesday

We took Hugo to doggie day care early as there is a lot we wanted to do today.  The kennel is awesome and they have executive suites for dogs and cats, at a premium price of course.  It looks like a lovely kennel and Hugo was happy to wave us goodbye for the day.  First stop was Parliament House, my goodness, what a place, it’s huge and light and airy and very modern.  We did a tour so all could be explained to us.  Parliament wasn’t sitting so both houses were empty, had they been sitting we would have been able to sit in the public gallery and observe the proceedings. We went into the Senate chambers and The house of Representatives chambers. The house of Representatives colour is all in green and this is all because Green is the colour traditionally used by the British House of Commons, and the Australian House of Representatives followed that tradition when the old Parliament House was being built and furnished in 1926-7. The shades of green selected in the present Chamber represent the grey-green tones of native eucalypts.  The senate décor colour is red and the reason for this is that it signifies our traditional link with the red decoration of the House of Lords in the British Parliament. The red ochre tones used in the Senate are soft shades, typical of the Australian eucalypt landscape.  (Just a smidge of history for you :-)). There are some amazing artworks in the Parliament building and portrait paintings of the past Prime Ministers, some of the more recent ones however haven’t been painted yet. The old Parliament building can be seen from the roof of the new Parliament building.  We did a tour of the old Parliament building as well and what a difference, old, small offices and chambers and quite stuffy and very much a mens type club. We took a tour too of the National art gallery and the National portrait gallery. Both galleries were very interesting and so many art works to see. Ralph really wanted to see Ned Kelly’s death mask and he wasn’t disappointed as it was well displayed. I thought that it was a bit eerie because the mask was done when he was hanged, it gave me goosies. We visited the High court of Australia and were allowed to sit in on a trail which was going on.  It was a company fraud case and there were 5 judges presiding and one of them was the chief justice.  It was really interesting to watch.  After that we were pretty stuffed, Ralphs back hurt and my feet were sore and we had to pick Hugo up. It was a big day, so we went to pick Hugo up before the Kennel closed.  He had such a good day, he had a swim, a bath, a play and I think that he would have been happy to stay there.  They gave us photos of him that they had taken which I thought was quite sweet. They said that he is such a smiley dog and of course I agree.  Tomorrow we will visit the Telsta tower, you can go up there onto the viewing platform and they have a revolving restaurant.  Apparently the view of Canberra from there is awesome.  It is going to be 37 degrees tomorrow so I don’t think that we will be doing too much running around.

14^th November, Friday

Up early and we can feel that it’s going to be a scorcher.  We decided to do the shopping first while it is still cool before we did some more sight seeing.  There is a huge visible police presence here at the moment as David Cameron arrived this morning ahead of the G20 summit.  We are glad that we visited Parliament house yesterday because it would be so busy today as Parliament is sitting and Tony Blair is a guest in the chamber and we probably would not have got in anyway. We went up to some of the lookouts, took a drive along Lake Burley Griffin, there are some nice views of Canberra from there.  Actually everywhere you go there are nice views. We went up to Black mountain to see the tower but we didn’t bother about going up as we have had really good views from other vantage points. There is a sign there that says that the transmissions could interfere with your cars ignition and security system.  Ralph reckons that what they are saying is “Your car is stuffed but please enjoy your visit”, HAHA. There was a big bush fire here (not sure when) and the whole area is being replanted with what seems to be trees from all over the world.  It’s called ‘The National Arboretum’.  I think that it will look awesome in about 10 years time when the trees have grown.  A lot of work has been put into planting these trees. We took a drive through the city on the way back, it’s a very modern city with heaps of apartments, coffee shops, cafes, etc. Canberra is a city that was designed before it was built and I think that they have done a good job.  The whole city and suburbs are well laid out and it’s a very leafy city. There is good signage everywhere and although there is a lot of traffic there is no congestion, even at peak time.  We are quite impressed. The funny thing though is that we drive from NSW to ACT then back to NSW all within 10 kms and no country inbetween.  We were parked at the lights and the front of the car was in NSW and the back of the car was in the ACT.  Back to the van and air con because it really is hot. We leave tomorrow for Gundegai and Ralph keeps singing that song, you know the one, “On the road to Gundegai”.  I’m going to gag him.