I didn’t actually faceplant the wall this morning when the
alarm woke me up. The morning wasn’t too cold, but people were around. It was
like the city had woken up from a deep sleep and there was actually traffic
around too. I had no problems finding breakfast either as shops were open. My
plan was to hire the push bike again as I was going to be busy with visiting
strategic locations across the lake and wanted to get there quickly.
The ride to old parliament house was not too bad though I
did feel it from the day before from the bike seat. The bike is great as it
really saves me time instead of having to walk everywhere. I did stop on the
way as I had wanted to see the Australian of the Year exhibition on the lake
edge. The displays ran from around the 1960s when it first began until now with
some changes in 1993. I did not know the awards were open for groups like The
Seekers as I had thought it was for individual people. Still it was interesting
to find that Joan Sutherland and a few others were part of it all.
Old Parliament House the day before had been very busy with
a sea of people going through as there was an event I had not seen on the
website with knights and all that medieval stuff going on. Today I had made it
well before the school groups and the mass of tourists who would be floating
around by the bus load. The first display I wanted to see was the political
exhibition called Behind the Lines and was about the political cartoonists and
their interpretations of current events like issues with Clive Palmer, Team
Australia and the Budget crisis. I do like looking at what is on the
cartoonists mind.
I did later find out when walking through the House of
Representatives section that they had not expected such large crowds of
Canberrians to be interested in medieval stuff to actually turn up. They have
big events like that several times a year. One of the rooms I would have loved
to visit was closed for cleaning so I had to miss the Prime Minister’s suite.
The lady did ask if I didn’t like crowds and I told her that at the time I was
hungry and seen the line so went elsewhere for lunch instead. I never seen the
event advertised on the website when I looked, but I had only been looking at
opening times. It was interesting learning about the Whips for both sides of
parliament as they were in charge of keeping their party members in line.
Learning various little bits about the Prime Ministers was just as interesting
like one Pm, Whitlam I think had a complete accurate record of Hansard and the
Hansard people would check their records with his to make sure theirs were
correct with their references.
I did think it was funny how two paintings of politicians
were staring at each other; Malcolm Fraser and Paul Keating were eye to eye
with Keating having a funny look on his face. The media had their own rooms
upstairs and they were really good at sniffing out leaks and keeping an eye on
politicians especially when they all went out for drinks and socialised
together. The media seemed to be crammed together and it was known to be a
rabbit warren of offices in the roof. They did seem to know what was going on especially
with the leaks. Alcohol in Canberra was at one stage prohibited, but it never
stopped the political folk to bring it in by the cart load to drink.
The senate was on the other side of the building didn’t have
that much about it other than about the Queens visit to open parliament and the
furniture that had been purchased for that period of time. The Country Party,
which is now The Nationals had their own room that they used and it wasn’t what
I had expected at all. Menzies had a exhibit about himself and his videos he
had taken while in the UK during the Blitz, which had been for worded by John
Howard. The Magna Carta room was actually the old library and the books may
have been taken away, but contained information about Australian democracy like
the Eureka Stockade and the tent Embassy though I wandered off once a large
group of kids wandered in as a tour group.
By then I wanted to ride to the next destination, which was
the National Library of Australia. I was not sure what I was expecting other
than the two displays about National treasures and the Rothschild prayer book.
I had to give up my bag before I went in and I was entertaining the thought
that I would have lunch when I was done. I headed to the National treasures
part that was all about different aspects of Australian heritage from naming
plates made for Aboriginals to identify them like King Billy. Eddie Mabo had
his court papers on display and other displays. The interesting part was they
had a display of the Book of Hours otherwise known as the Rothschild prayer
book that had been bought by a private collector. I thought there were more
than one book in the collection, but the other part of the display was just to
show the different printing styles like on animal hide and the Guttenburg press
I think it was called. There was another display about World War one soldiers
and the recruitment process trying to get the men overseas and about the home
front too. There were German propaganda world maps that were really interesting
as the countries were people all fighting. After doing these small tours I
collected my bag and looked at the lunch menu. I decided to instead have my
mars bar after I had taken a wander through the bookshop.
After the library was actually something that as not a very
far walk to though I rode there instead. Questacon science museum, it’s not
really my thing, but It had been a suggestion from someone that I work with to
visit. I did find some of the stuff interesting like the optical illusions and
perceptions that trick our senses. Some of the displays did mean you have to do
some work with various leavers and I had another visitor laughing at me when I
was playing with the rocket water generator as I mentioned that it took so much
work for just one little thing to occur. I did wait around for the testlacoil
to charge up and fire off some lightning, but much of what I had seen in the
past were at other museums. You walked all the way up a ramp to the top floor
and then work your way down to the bottom floor by visiting each room that had
something different there. I did notice that it was starting to get late and I
did want to head off so that I could visit something else on the other side of
the lake. On the way I had to stop for a pit stop at the National gallery and
for a phone call too.
My plan was to take a ride and visit something I had no idea
about and a building called Blundells cottage. I never actually got that far as I found
something more interesting and that was the National Carllion that made really
nice music. I paused to take pictures of the National Police memorial and the
display about the HMAS Canberra that had sunk. By this time I knew I really had
to leave or else it would be dark and past time I had to have the bike back. I
had also complete one goal I had not thought about at the time and that was to
ride around part of the lake. I did make it back to the hostel with 10 mins
before the bike was due to be returned and right on dark too. I was lucky as I
really did not want to ride in Canberra in the dark. Still it was a great day
and I seen plenty of the town. Tomorrow my plan is to spend the day at the War
Memorial as there is always plenty to see there and I will walk this time
around, but have to leave early enough too.
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