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Published: January 12th 2010
DAY 430
We woke to our new temporary surroundings in Canberra this morning, the morning was hot and the poor little punkawalla had put in the night shift keeping us cool. Lauren had already left for work at the immigration department and Susan was just about to walk out the door to go to her position at Hewlett Packard, leaving Caroline and myself to get ready for the day.
Strangely enough it really did feel like we were on holiday today, which was weird, as we have been officially on holiday for 14 months, but today just seemed different.
I had tried this morning to catch up on the blog as we have been a couple of blog’s adrift and however we tried, seemed unable to catch up, so today it is our intention to make the absolute most of Canberra as we only gave it a couple of days last time we were here.
After tea and toast and tea again, and a bit of blog work, we are watching the morning Sky News, they announced that today for the first time, a Code Red has been posted as Bush Fire is at Catastrophic level
due to the high temperatures and strong winds, all National parks have been closed in South Australia and Victoria and total fire bans have been banned in three states, including New South Wales.
I notice that our travel friends Darryl and Sarah, AKA The Wallaby Wanderers were on Skype and are in South Australia so I contact them and make sure they are OK and advise them that all National Parks are closed and they are on a very high state of alerts, so they need to be careful, they are grateful for the heads up.
We get ourselves ready and head out in to town as we are off to the War Memorial, it is a beautiful building, very well set in its surroundings, we are excited to see the War Memorial as we have heard some very good things about it.
We parked the truck and walked through the grounds to the entrance, but on the way you get side tracked by a couple of external exhibits, there is a huge German gun that was once mounted on the back of a special train, the capture of the Amiens Gun by Australian and British soldiers
was a significant achievement. During the summer of 1918, it had been used by the Germans to fire on the city of Amiens, about 25 kilometres away, from a railway carriage. Attempts had been made by the Allies to destroy this powerful weapon, but to no avail.
Futher on is a 54 tonne Centurian Tank that has been restored and is in beautiful condition, I ask Caroline how heavy she thinks it is and Caroline says “8 tonnes”, good guess but no cigar!
Just before we go in to the War Memorial, there is another external exhibit and a large one at that it is the bridge of HMAS Brisbane which is quite amazing, they literally took the bridge off HMAS Brisbane which was a guided missile destroyer just before they scrapped her. Just in case you are interested, the remainder of HMAS Brisbane is now a dive site just off the Sunshine Coast.
We went inside only to find the the there was no entrance fee which was amazing, no charge to go in, if this was the UK, they would have taken your shorts down and spanked your bum for the entrance fee, they even
Centurion Tank
It does not weigh 8 tonnescharge you to see that pile of rubbish they call Stonehenge what a waste of money that is, the robbing ba*+ards,any excuse to penny pinch from people and not give them value for money. Sorry about that rant, I just can’t help myself sometimes.
I accept that war is not pretty,but the artifacts of war need to be put under the supervision of custodians who give us the opportunity to view the horrors and the hardships so people can appreciate how people have suffered.
This subject usually makes Caroline yawn, not because she finds the subject not of interest, but its just not really a girl thing, but credit where credit is due Caroline was interested from start to the finish.
At first we went through all the First World War exhibits, although I never can understand why they called it the Great War, was it really that great? I don’t think so, too many people suffered.
The exhibits that really caught my eye were the dioramas which were designed to create an emotional account of the experiences of Australians who fought in the First World War. They provide a broad picture of the places where
A memorial
To the Merchant seamen major battles were fought.
One soldier was sitting on a pile of gooey mud in a puddle of water with his head in his hands, it looked as if this person had just been transported from the front line right in to the Australian War Memorial, it was just fantastic.
We walked around the WW1 exhibit for a couple of hours then I had to revive her Ladyship with the promise of a skinny latte and a slice of cake.
We set off around the World War II exhibit, this was more my area of interest, they had a beautifully restored Lancaster Bomber there and with the aide of audio visual effects and lighting the exhibit was great. This Lancaster called “G for George” survived almost 90 operations between 1942 and 1944.
We were both hot and tired, there was still a lot to see, including a special exhibition on Love and War which is here until May 2010, we want to go and have a look at that too, so to make sure that we give it the attention it deserves we decide to come back another day.
On the way out we check
out another exhibit and nestled in amongst some of the memorabilia we see a little Golden Caterpillar. If you were with us last March on blog day 136, 23rd March entitled “The Golden Caterpillar,” you will understand the relevance of our sighting. We met a guy called George Heath who is a member of the Caterpillar Club, a club that was formed in 1922, when Leslie Irvin made a pledge to donate a gold caterpillar pin to every person whose life was saved by using one of his parachutes.
We got back to the house at about 3.00, we needed some shade as it was so dam hot, certainly within the 40’s, when we got back Rocky and Misha (the City Dogs) were hiding in the shade outside desperate to get in to the cool temperature of the house. They could not get inside quick enough as soon as we had unlocked and opened the door.
Whilst I had a snoozle, Caroline edited the blog and started watching the film Nights in Rodanthe.
Susan asked us if we would like to go and have a swim but Caroline needed to make an important Skype call to the
Looking Back
At the Australian Houses of Parliment UK and did not want to miss the time.
Susan cooks us a superb evening meal, we had fahitas, which were absolutely great, and when Susan went off for a shower Caroline and I washed up then we sat down with a cup of tea and watched some TV before retiring at 10.00 after an exhausting day.
It was another hot night, both windows are wide open and the punkawalla fan is busy spinning overhead, it is barely making a difference in this heat, but it is better than nothing, we could otherwise be tucked up in bed in England trying to stay warm.
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ThePass
non-member comment
HP
Thought I would use my travelblog name and see what happened. Anyway, say Hi to Susan. Most of my working life was with Hewlett Packard mainframe computers. Nice to see you doing a bit of travel. Can't wait till you are on the road again.