Day 136 / 2017 - Cowra to Canberra

We decided that 2 days was enough time to view all the attractions we wanted to see in Cowra, it was time to move onto our next destination, Canberra. We planned to stay only 10 days in Canberra but ended up extending out to 15 Nights.

Leaving Cowra we followed the Lachlan Valley Road in a southerly direction. We found out the 189 km route is a picturesque, not too hilly and the most direct road to Canberra. This is the way the locals from Cowra take. 

The road was in reasonable condition and we were once again blessed with the caravaners friend, a tail wind. The hills were rolling but no so that we were continually changing gears. About half way we passed through the small town of Boorowa then continued onto towards Yass. Looking to the west we could see a big wall of pitch black cloud rolling towards us. As it got closer we could see the wall was actually heavy rain. As it passed over we could see lightning strikes hitting the ground, not far behind us, with a mixture of rain and thankfully light hail. It was almost coming sideways being driven by the strong gusty westerly wind which precedes a big storm. Surprisingly it didn't push the van around, we weren't travelling fast, this would have helped. 

It rained the rest of the way to Canberra  with lots of spray from trucks as they passed us especially along the Barton hwy. Ariving at EPIC we missed the booking office and ended up at the campground hoping there would be a caretaker, which there wasn't. A quick call and we realised we had passed the camping offce as we entered through gate 2, they said just choose a site, park up, then come down and see us once you have setup. We chose a site we liked, the ground was a bit muddy but so was everywhere else. We had just about finished seting up when one of the rangers came through and said do you realise there is no water tap on this site. Packing up again we moved to a site more to the rear which ended up being a better spot anyway, still muddy though.  Our next task was to drive into town and pay the tourist bureau a visit, on the way we stopped at the campground office and paid for an initial 5 nights,  then if we wanted to stay longer, pay for additional nights. 

Canberra is the Capital city of Australia in the Australian Captal Territory. The city  and surrounding area was designed by Walter Burley-Griffin,  after he won a competition proposed by the newly form federal government, not long after Federation. It took untill 1927 before the first parliment house was completed in what looked like a sheeps paddock and the seat of power finally moved from Melbourne. It took many years for the rest of the buildins which makeup a city to be built. Lake Burly Griffin, which is a magnificent backdrop to the Parliament precinct and surrounding parklands, is an artifically created lake was completed in 1964. 

Many of the attractions in Canberra are free especially if they are funded by the government which makes for us tourists, cheap treats. The downside is parking is not free especailly in the Parliment precinct and comercial areas. Even the shopping centres charge for parking.  

Visiting the Information bureau we soon discovered there were many attraction to look at. We worked out for the war memorial alone, we would probably need 3 days. We decided to visit between 2 to 3 attractions a day, We also realised at this rate it will take us longer than 5 days. We also wanted to drive to the snowy mountains where we would most likely stay over night in an Alpine Ski Lodge. We booked more days when our initial 5 days were up in all we would spend 15 days in Canberra.  

The Tourist Information Centre is located just outside the parliamentary precinct just before you cross the bridge. There is a great source of attraction information and is useful for booking tourist activities. We booked a triple package giving us entry to, Questacon Science Centre, AIS Sports Centre and Cockington Green. We payed a consessioned discount which was a really great saving for us. The information centre also houses the Canberra Exhibition Centre which displays the history of the original vision, design and building of Canberra. It was interesting to see the results of the referendum of federation with many of the centres in WA voting against federation. 

From the information centre we drove around to one of the Lake Burley-Griffin's lake side docks and boarded a lake cruise. The cruise took us around a section of the lake with the skipper pointing out various landmarks. From our vantage point we could see a lot of the memorials and tributes as well as both parliament houses, the Carillon and The National Museum. 

One of our must see was the National Australian War Memorial. We had spent only a few hours there many years ago, which was no where near long enough. There was a lot of information to cover since the Boer war, this time we though maybe 3 days would be better. The first day we did one of the introduction tours then outside to watch a dedication to a soldier killed in action and listen to a live rendition of the last post which is played each night to close the memorial. On our second day we covered the WW1 and part of WW2 displays, our final day we covered the rest of WW2, the Vietnam, Korean and Afganistan conflicts. There was still more to see but we decided we had seen so much our brains started to hurt and nothing more would go in. It hard not to be affected by the atrocities and sometimes we would feel anger. We then have to remind ourselves that that was all in the past and those who were once our enemies were now our allies. 

Cockington Green is a miniature village which has been constructed from actual buildings in England. There is also a section which has an international flavor displaying buildings from all around the world. Across the road is the National Dinosaur Museum which contains a large collection of artifacts and information about the dinosaur era from around Australia and the world. Next place to visit was the Australian Institute of Sport. We were the only ones on our tour so got the personal touch treatment where we could spend more time in the places we wanted to see. Our guide took us through some of the training areas which included athletics centre, volleyball court and swimming pool. We also briefly watched a national basketball training camp in action, which just happened to be on at the same time. Our final attraction of the triple package was Questacon. This is a sicence centre of discovery where there are tons of hands on activities. The centre is aimed at introducing science to the young but is equally as much fun to the young at heart. 

Parliament Precinct Water Front is located on the shores of Lake Burley-Giffin in front of the Parliament houses. You can take the 'Australian of the Year' walk along the foreshore. There is a row of plinths starting from 1961 to present day, with each plinth showing a picture and a description of the award recipient. Interestingly, all the plinths are arranged in a line along a musical staff engraved into the ground, with each plinth representing the notes of the National Anthem "Advance Australia Fair." The foreshore is a great place to have a picnic and watch the people go by.  

The deep space tracking centre is located in Tidbinbilla amongs the mountains surrounding Canberra, about 30km from the city centre. The deep space complex was originally built as part of NASA's Apollo mission to the moon and was used to track the Luna Module as well as provide support to the Apollo 11 command module.  It is still in use and participates in many of JPL's deep space missions. There is a visitor's centre which houses a space museum full of information about past and present space missions.  

There are a number of high vantage points which overlook Canberra and surrounding area. Telstra Tower, also affectionally called 'The Hypodermic' by the locals, is located on top of Black Mountain. Visitors can ride the elevator to several viewing platform's and a cafe with a view. On the ground floor we spied a display of old mobile phone equipment showing the evolution from the old boot mounted to hand held models. I remember every one of those when they were being used. On the opposite side of the city Ainsley lookout is a mountain vantage point above the National War Memorial. From here you look across the top of the War Memorial towards both parliment house's. 

The National Mint is where all Australia's coins are manufactured. The denomination of coins made is the 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, $1 and $2. Of these coins there are 3 classes, standard circulated, standard uncirculated and proof. The uncirculated and proof coins are sort after by collectors and can exceed their face values. Uncirculated coins are made from the same process as circulated but are never released and sold to collectors. Proof coins are also only sold to collectors but go a more rigorous production process and have addtional features added to them. They are a limited number produced. The uncirculated and circulated coins are manufactured through a mostly robotic process while the proof coins are very much a hands on process. you can see all the types of coins being made from a viewing platform above the work areas. The standard joke at the mint is there are no free samples. There is also a machine that can produce for you a personally minted $1 coin for the cost of $3. 

The National Portrait Gallery also located in the Parliamentry precinct, displays many portraits of well known Australian people. Her you can see the famous faces of politicians, sporting stars, historical figures, dignitaries and actors The National Archives is where all of Australia's old secrets... err records are stored. You can visit any day of the week but if you wish to access the library or search the records you can only do this during the week. The National Musem is located opposite from the Parliament precint across lake Burley Griffin. Here is many historical display's from all over Australia of both European and Indiginous origin. 

Parliament House was not sitting when we were there, but is still worth a visit. Each day free guided tours are given where a guide takes you through and describes the various areas of Parliament House. You look at both chambers, The Senate, and The House of Representatives. The House of Representatives is based on the Westminster System and is where the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition sits. The Senate is based on a republic system similar to the US system of government and is headed by a President. They chambers are colour coded, Green for house of Reps, Red for Senate, I guses this is so they don't get confused where they are. Once the tour is complete you are free to walk to any of the public acessable areas including the roof top garden and flagpole. If parliament is sitting you can obtain a free pass to sit in one of the public galleries and watch the precedings.  

Old Parliament House is is now a museum. It was orginally built as a temporary place for government only meant to last 25 Years. It ended up being used from 1927 to 1987 (60 Years) with Bob Hawke being the last Prime Minster to govern in Old Parliament house. There is a no cost guided tour but you are also free to wander through the building with almost all areas, including what was the Prime Ministers Office, open to the public. There is lots of information about past government's and their key moments in history. Old Parliament House is celebrating this month, 90 years. 

The High Court is also open to the public and you have the opportunity to sit in on legal cases if they are in session. The high court is the highest legal court in Australia and its decision is final. It was explained to us that If a case makes it to the high court it is not so much about the decision of a court case from a lower court but more about testing the laws which bring about the decision of a court case. We were able to walk into each of the courts, our guides explain each court room has a different purpose. One court room has a Jury box even though High Court cases are deliberated by 5 judges and don't normally have Jury's, but it is there just in case. While we were visiting Bob Browns Challenge of Tasmanias Protest Laws was being heard and we could sit in the visitors gallery. It was a little boring and not like what you see on TV bring back Danny Crane. 

On the last two days in Canberra we decided to visit the alpine village of Thredbo in the snowy mountains. Here you can take the chairlift right to the top, then walk a well formed track to the top of Mount Kosciuszko. The alpine lodge in Threbo offered a between season package called 'Conquer Kozzie' which included a room, daily lift pass for 2 and a cooked breakfast for 2 for only $199.00. This was pretty good value considering lift passes alone would be $70.00 for the 2 of us and breakfast is normally $50.00 for 2 so we decided to treat ourselves to a night out. Leaving Early morning from Canberra we followed the Monaro Hwy then turned off to follow the Snowy Mountain Way. Arriving in Thredbo around 9:30am we were lucky, our room was available so we checked in. Originally we had planned to do the walk the following day but decided to do it the day we arrived instead. We took the Gum Tree lift to the top, normally you take the Thredbo Express but this was out for maintenance. The Gum Tree lift stopped short of the top by about 200 metres so we had to negociate a steep path the rest of the way to the start of the track to Kozzie summit. 

The walking track about 13 Km (return) and a reasonable grade. The walking track is well formed with a good distance is elevated and made from steel mesh. This is to preserve the fragile environment. Mt Kosciuszko is one of the easist accessable mountain summits. The walk took us about 2 hours to get there, stopped for a picnic lunch for about half an hour to take in the view, then another hours back. We were really lucky in that we had one of the best weather days with only a mild breaze and bright blue sky's. It was quite cold with temperature in single digits. At the start we met a guy who was in his 70's so decided to tag along to keep an eye on him. We really enjoyed the walk but were pretty worn out by the time we had returned to the top of the chair lift. Returning to the lodge we decided to have an early tea then sat by the fire with a coffee the retired to bed early as we were pretty tired after all the walking. Next morning we woke early, we were quite snug in our room but the outsde temperature had once again gone below zero overnight. After breakfast we headed back to Canberra taking a break at Jyndabine for a walk along the lake foreshore.