Kapital Tour Day 5. The Canberra Finale museums and foxes

Kapital Tour Day 5. The Canberra Finale museums and foxes

Today I was doing exactly the same thing I was doing the day before and leaving the hostel not long after I had gotten up. I did not go far at all as I ended up downstairs in the cafe with school kids all eating their breakfast doing what little school kids do, which I remember other than antagonising the teacher that I didn’t like. They were loud at first, but the noise ended up as a dull roar so I really know I got used to that though they were being told what to do and I wasn’t so all was great with the world there.

I was heading towards the National museum of Australia, but I was partially following the London Circuit where I was going. I wanted to visit the National Film and Sound Archive along the way though I knew the museum would not open until 10am so I had plenty of time. I was thinking that I was getting lost and turned off a Gordon street that I knew was close to my first destination. The other streets I could not really read as I had the sun in my eyes so it was really guess work. I had lost the Archives, but found a Ian Potter house that had a blurb about it being part of the academy of science that was built around 1927. There is a nearby building that I didn’t pay attention to that is called the Shine Dome that I ignored, but seemed to be significant in some strange way.

Across the road from the Ian Potter building was actually the Archives I was looking for and as I was walking up to it there was a little beast that ran away before I could get a good photo of it. I had seen a  local that was a fox. It was a really deep red as well though I looked for it when I walked up to the doors of the Film and Sound Archive. I was looking at the information on the building when a human local (A talking fox might get me into trouble) mentioned the fox and I looked to see it running the way it had come from. The local said it was unusual to see one in town and I replied that I thought it was a common sight. I found the original function of the archives was something very different to what it was now. The building was the former Institute of Anatomy founded by Colin Mackenzie. The building was built in 1931 though would later be the Archives.

I wandered off to where I had to go towards the museum, but was wondering how I would in fact get anywhere near the lake front as there was a road. Beside a crazy looking hotel that just had strange shapes I found traffic lights that I crossed. It didn’t take me long to wander over to the museum, but I seemed to still be in the grounds of the Australian National Museum. I could see there were buses around the museum and I thought they were waiting for the museum to open and it was not until I got to the door that I found the museum opened its doors at 9am and it was not long after 9am that I had entered. It was good to find this out though and I had to drop my bag off before I could go anywhere. In the foyer of the building were some displays that were highlights to the collection like a Gull airplane, the first car that went around Australia and a local repair person who was a saw doctor with a very eccentric looking trailer. I did stop in the part about the home front and it had information about what was happening at home in WW1 and included about some prominent people including an anatomy person who had used his study on the arms of Koala bears to help set arms of people in the war. I thought the bit about Billy Hughes Prime Minister at the time was pretty good too.  I had heaps of time before 1230pm where I would be stopping for a lecture about the Water Diviner. Once I started making my way up the ramp there was a show we could sit on that was a little revolving cinema called Circa. It gave highlights of the museum collections while moving in a circle though it reset if you stool up so we had to stay seated. We were let out into the main part of the museum though it was a little disconcerting that this happened.

The displays were about the changing ideas about what Australians had to the country like the bushfires especially the Black Saturday and the Canberra fires too. The age of the country was an ever evolving part as in the space of around 30 or so years people had a better understanding in the countries age. The farming technology including the different wheats and even the sheep had changed over this time. I was browsing about rabbits as there was a lot of rabbits, but other pest animal that had been bought in. The rabbits were good for the hard times in Australia especially during the depression. By this time the hordes of kids had caught up and I was in the display about the Australian cities and how they were made where I could hear the clanking of chains from the kids. There were displays on early Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart. These all included water and river sand from the cities. This was strange, but different and Adelaide was built by the people who were outsiders in the Church of England so there were many different denominations. By this time I had to stop for a quick lunch before the show started.

While waiting for the talk to begin there was a collections gallery that had clothing from Germaine Greer and her book, Part of the plane Sothern Cross, Nova Peris’ gold medal, a collection of convict love coins and a few others that were interesting. I cant forget ballast and a cannon from the Endeavour as several other countries like the Te Papa museum in Wellington has one too. I had thought the book had been written before the movie, but it had been the other way round. The talk by the producer and the researcher was going to include a viewing of the movie, but I was not going to stay for that. It had taken around 5 years for the movie to go from start to finish and was well received in Turkey too. The part where the farmer goes to Gallipoli to look for his sons was an actual event where someone had done that, but no one can confirm who it was other than being mentioned in a soldiers diary in 1919. There were some interesting questions being put out, but one lady did not seem to be impressed that the Turkish were being portrayed as friends and innocents as they had done a lot of bad things. The two movie people used the Australian Aboriginals as an example and said everyone on both sides had the potential to do the same thing. I think the people were taking offence at their Greek heritage being shown in a different light as there were guerrillas back then.

Once I was free of the studio I was off again into the first Australians gallery that spoke about the different areas of Australia that the aboriginal people came from and what they were doing there. They had a map of the different locations and how the country was divided up depending on the languages. The exhibitions spoke about the different culture areas and the hardships the people had to go through in Australia and included a collection of breastplates. There were many different aspects of Aboriginal and Torres strait islanders depicted. There were some protestors from different locations including the Gold Coast that surprised me. I wasn’t expecting to see anything from this area. The bit about the Stolen generations was particularly interesting and I can see how some people can find this sort of information confronting.

The last area I encountered was about the landmarks that defined the different parts of Australia. These displays included how the local tribes were treated and the impact these settlements had on them too. There was Bowen Hills, Townsville, Flemington with the Melbourne Cup, Bendigo and Ballarat with he gold and the stockade. They had to include Canberra in on this too and the people including Neville Bonner who was born in Tweed Heads and went on to be a parliamentarian. There was a lot of pastoralists, explorers who perished or simply vanished and innovators like the town of Sunshine in Victoria that had a thrasher machine. By this time I was getting museum fatigue again and I was merly browsing though I was getting ready to go. When I did leave I found some more books to look at and there were some interesting ones available. On picking my bag up I told the cloak guy that I would be coming back when I am back in town again especially since that means two museums in the town.

I wandered on back along the river front and realised there was a pedestrian bridge that I could have used to cross the highway instead of using the traffic lights. I was wanting o go see the new Jurassic Park movie so headed off that way knowing I would have to shower and pack for the next day as I was leaving for Sydney.  I have heard it is cold there so I will know after a bus ride in the morning so hopefully not as cold as it has been here in Canberra.