Blog 7 - filling in the week in Canberra!

Sorry for delay folks (It is now Sunday 14th) but we got a bit sidetracked in our efforts to make sure we didn't miss a moment's opportunity back last week. Surprisingly we're still feeling relaxed and excited by it all - so the mass information and experience input over the last week doesn't seem to have blown fuses yet. I'll try to fill you in without weighing in too heavily though.
Tuesday 9th October - The Melbourne War Memorial is genuinely awe-inspiring and a fitting tribute to the soldiers. On the 11th hour of the 11th day etc a shaft of sunlight falls on the word 'love' on the central stone 'Greater Love Hath No Man' - simplicity amidst the grandeur surrounding it all.
We spent the rest of the morning visiting the private galleries and learned more about Aboriginal art and how to tell good from poor and what is involved to a greater extent. Fascinating.
An easy, fast flight to Canberra and we arrived in warm sun in its small and attractive aiport. There was an immediate sense of release in Canberra - it is laid out with massive light and space and a beautiful central lake 'Burley Griffin'. The few skyscrapers are clustered gently together in the shopping and business area and all the rest is hills and trees and birds and the occasional government building or museum. It was a perfect contrast to Melbourne.

We arrived at Richard's favourite hotel, the Hyatt and it is truly astonishing. Only 2 floors are visible above ground and it stretches backwards the size of a small airport. Built early on in the construction of Canberra for the politicians to have somewhere civilised to stay it is classical 1920s, brown and cream and sedate. The bedroom was huge and kept in a modern take on the style elsewhere and the bathroom was the size of our last bedroom in Melbourne.

OK that will be the mega-fancy part of the blog and it was only for 2 days! The food was unexceptional and it was hard to cope with having no way of opening the windows for real live fresh air, but they are small grouses.
However, we were truly lucky to have some of Richard's ex colleagues living in Canberra and they really did us proud. We met Adrian, Dennis and Pauline for dinner at the Hyatt the first evening, had Wednesday to ourselves to be impressed by the New Parliament building and its very impressive tour guides. The building (about 10 years old) opens wide welcoming 'arms' to the nation, is set on a lowish hill so as not to be too imposing and even has grass over the top of the roof so that you can stand above your representatives. Sadly, it appears from what we are told, that those representatives do not necessarily improve by this treatment and behave in much the same way as those world over.
We then took ourselves off to the National Art Gallery - good collection of indigenous art and a small but interesting sculpture gallery. It also had a delightful sculpture garden set by the lake, which we then walked along to get back to rest at the hotel. In the evening we were met by Melany and Stuart, also ex-colleagues who took us to dinner at the Old Parliament House. The dinner was absolutely fine, though smoked kangaroo didn't have me jumping with pleasure (sorry!) and its strange emptiness was disconcerting. However, the company was good and helped us learn yet more about Australia and its doings.