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Between 2 slices of Sydney we had a Canberra filling, visiting the nation's man-made capital for the weekend. It was built between Melbourne and Sydney, the two towns that had been competing for the distinction of being Australia's most important city, and was loosely based on the design of Washington, D.C.
We spent the afternoon at Cockington Green, an old country house with some amazing miniature models of buildings both from England and around the world, complete with lego-men sized people. So we saw Stonehenge, Angkor Wat, and even Machu Picchu, all on a single leisurely walk! That's the way to do it.
The next day we took a guided tour around Parliament House, which is cut into the hill that looks over the city. It's cut
into the hill because originally the site was chosen to be on top of the hill, but they then decided they didn't want the politicians looking down onto the poeple. So the clever architects overcame this by building the House into the hill. Being part of the Commonweath, Parliament House has traditions similar to the House of Commons, for instance by having a red and green room, but to make it more
Australian they based the colours on eucalyptus trees. We now officially know more about about the Australian system than we do the British!
Finally, we took a stroll through the Australian War Memorial, a museum dedicated to all those who lost their lives while serving their country. It was pretty interesting with a number of detailed models and dioramas, and told the story of one of Anzac's (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) proudest battles, the time they spent on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey. Apparently, Americans are always amazed that they don't specifically comemorate the soldiers of higher rank, as Australians love supporting the underdog, and try to be egalitarian.
The story I found most interesting was that during World War 1 the government struggled to find a way to contact people all over Australia to give them the death notices. They figured that every settlement must have some sort of religious building, and who better to comfort widows than priests? So they sent the notices to the priests in the big cities, who then sent them to local parishes. However, what they didn't bargain for was that the women would grow afraid of the priests, and
avoid them at all costs. This has been found to be directly linked to Australia having one the lowest church-attendences in the world- only 0.4%!!(MISSING)
On the way back to Sydney we found a big merino! They like
big things here, see a later entry for the big prawn!
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Sarah
non-member comment
You learn something new every day
Yellow, all sounds fantastic, and I didn't know that's what a merino looks like so thanks! Educational too!! You know the reason I haven't been commenting much is that, as you predicted, I am growing more and more bitter that you are in all these fabulous and exotic locations and I have to work and look at the rain. But no fear, I'm going to sunny England v soon (ever hopeful) and then even sunnier Spain so the jealousy is wearing off, slightly :-) Just think, you couly have saved all that effort going to Machu Picchu and just gone to Canberra!! Keep up the stories, lots of love xx