A little bit of general knowledge..

Day 63 | 23.10.2018 | Museum marathon in Canberra

Hello my dear ones!

Sitting in the camper freezing, we were already looking forward to an exciting day in Australia's capital city during breakfast on this Monday morning. We had already experienced so much and above all diverse things on this vacation, so we now wanted to learn more about the country and its young history. Today we wanted to explore the various museums in the city.

When we parked Liu in the city around half past eleven, the sun finally came out and promised a warm spring day. We started our little educational journey where our day ended yesterday:

In the 'National Capital Exhibition', which shares a building with the tourist information office, the history of the founding of Australia in 1901 and the associated search for a suitable capital city was vividly presented. We watched an audio lecture on a large, round model of Canberra that was brought to life by lasers and projectors, which illuminated the city's creation and development. The building of the city, the problems that arose, and how the construction was delayed by several years due to the two world wars were reported here in an exciting and vivid way. Many questions that we had asked ourselves during our vacation were already answered here.

On the other side of the artificial lake in the city were all the other buildings of interest to us. Not far from the shore was the 'High Court', the Federal Court of Australia. There was also an illustrative and detailed museum here. And all of this for free! After a brief security check, we entered the sterile and pompous building and made our way through the various information boards and exhibits. The detailed presentation of the Australian constitution and its judiciary turned out to be too high and time-consuming for us to read, so we left the building after watching a well-designed and informative short film on these topics.

We wanted to be at the National Gallery of Australia at 1:30 p.m. to take part in a free guided tour, so we had to speed up a bit. Surprisingly, we were the only people who showed up at the meeting point at the agreed time. This meant that we would get a private tour of the museum! Sally, a nice older lady originally from the United States, took us on a journey through the art of the Australian indigenous people and the unknown Australian artists to us. Her enthusiasm for the works and the passion of her volunteer work could be felt in every sentence. She showed us selected paintings and explained the background of the seemingly banal works of the Aboriginal people. If we had not appreciated the art of the indigenous people before, we now saw it in a different light: Each artwork tells a story of the artist that he is supposed to pass on to the descendants of the tribe. The paintings, which are painted from a bird's eye view, mainly show lands and significant places. To this day, it is not known what stories they are supposed to tell. It was fun to listen to Sally's words and feel her passion for each individual piece of art. She could answer all of our questions in great detail. Paintings were followed by masks, headdresses, art on tree bark, and wooden figures. Each of the countless tribes of the Aboriginal people produced very individual art with its own patterns. This was followed by the less mythical but equally beautiful paintings by Australian artists. Sally could tell us the background of each and every one of them. When the time was up, we thanked the nice lady for the great personal tour and took a brief look at the pop-art department to admire a few real 'Warhols'.

Time flew by and we noticed our rumbling stomachs as we left the beautiful gallery. The sunny weather invited us to sit outside, so we took a short break to eat our sandwiches.

With our energy reserves replenished, we went to the 'Old Parliament House', which gave up its former function to the 'New Parliament House' a few hundred meters away in 1988. We entered the shining white magnificent building and found ourselves in the 'King's Hall'. We walked directly towards a golden statue of King George V. The father of Queen Elizabeth II had inaugurated the house at the time.

A nice, sprightly older man greeted us friendly and almost forced us to let him guide us through the building. In the end, six people found themselves being led by Doug Nutt through the walls. To the left and right of the grand hall were the meeting rooms of the Senate and the Representatives, facing each other in red and green tones. We immediately felt transported back in time as we sank into the thick cushions of the seats of the members of parliament. Doug enthusiastically chatted away and shared old anecdotes about the former ministers, which made us all smile again and again. We got to know the history of the parliament much more vividly through this than we would have done through reading. Surprised and excited that all these premises were accessible to the public, we walked through the corridors that Queen Elizabeth II once walked.

The time was running and so we unfortunately had to say goodbye to Doug and the group, as we still wanted to visit the new parliament house before it closed. Located on Capital Hill, the building with its large Australian flag stood just a few meters away from us.

The New Parliament House was more modern, sterile, and simpler, but similar in structure to its predecessor. To our delight, the House of Representatives was meeting that day and we could watch from the visitor's gallery. Only a few members had gathered to discuss the result of a debate on the value-added tax in Australia. We didn't understand much and made our way back to our camper.

Tired from the long and eventful day, we drove south to Bredbo. In this tiny town in the middle of nowhere, a motel provides free parking spaces for campers. Halfway there, we realized that the highway we had chosen didn't reconnect with the coast until much further south. It would have been better for our upcoming plans to drive straight east again. Well, we couldn't change it anymore and so we arrived at the old and historic motel a short time later.

Kisses,

Juli + Janina 🐨