Canberra – why not?? –and back – Parliament House – War Memorial Museum – endless Bankstown

At about 11 this morning, Pete expressed a fervent wish to go to Canberra. Right now! It will be FUN!!! It is a long long way to Canberra…it took us nearly four hours there and no faster (funny, that) coming back. We got there about 3 and left at 6.15 so we had just over three hours to see the sights.

And yes the sights were worth seeing! I had only ever set foot in Canberra once, in 1968, when I caught a bus from Melbourne to Sydney, overnight. At about midnight they stopped, briefly, so we could all wake up and go to the toilet. And this time – what did I most want to do when I got to Canberra! Yes indeed!!

Pete had been to Canberra in his youth, for more than a toilet stop, but he hadn’t seen the new parliament house, so we went there first. And wow – what a beautiful building… Very imposing, and very lovely, with highly polished wooden floors (jarrah?) or long expanses of pale grey carpet. Marble staircases and majestic columns in pale pink and green; beautiful art work, tapestries, embroideries, delicate marquetry. Just stunning!

I didn’t expect to see anyone I knew in Canberra, but ofcourse the first people we saw, poring over the King James Bible exhibition, were John Thompson and his wife Karen. We all laughed and they asked what we were doing in Canberra – they were visiting family. “Umm well…’ I said. “Contrary to appearances, we are actually sailing to the Pacific Islands. Yes…via Canberra…”

We went up onto the roof to look at the views over Canberra, and found a poor freezing security guard, standing in the whistling icy wind, who said, “Thank goodness for Gore-tex!” It is very cold in Canberra. Not too cold today – around 7. The security guard told us it only got to 2.5 yesterday. BRRR!!
We only had half an hour or so at the War Memorial Museum and that was quite enough for me. I found it so overwhelmingly sad… Great displays, and all very interesting. But on one wall was a big inscription, which said that with all of the conflicts world-wide since 1945, peace is still elusive. And that is the only message I took away with me… We were there for the closing ceremony, which was a lone piper playing a Scottish lament. Very appropriate.

And how big is Bankstown? We seemed to be in it forever, coming and going... Miles of traffic lights!

So now we are back on 2XS, exhausted but very pleased with our (non-sailing) adventure.