Tinkerblue

Road Trip - Canberra to the Blue Mountains

Mmm I have absolutely no photos of the drive from Canberra to Leura in the Blue Mountains. Other than petrol, I don't think we made any stops. We didn't leave Canberra until around 4pm, and the drive was 4 hours so we figured we should just drive straight through. Although I did try to get Hubby to stop at the Big Merino in Goulburn and The Dog on the Tuckerbox in Gundagai, but he wasn't playing along. I even sang "Along The Road to Gundagai" to him, I think that might have put him off even more.

 

image courtesy Sol bot image courtesy AYArktos


Once Hubby had decided that Leura was our next stop, he had booked a hotel on his handy, dandy iPad, noting in the reservation that we would be a late arrival at 8:00pm (reception closed at 6:00pm). We pulled into the driveway just before 8:00pm, actually about 15 mins early.  We called the after hours #, we tried the after hours intercom, we called central reservations, we called head office in Sydney, we sent emails, we even called another hotel in the same chain to see if they had a contact number. For 45 minutes we sat in the driveway with the engine running and the lights on (not very efficient or environmentally friendly, I know).  Just has we were trying to decided whether to find another hotel or just skip the Blue Mountains altogether and drive straight to our friend's house in Sydney, the Manager called us back. 

 

 photo Leura Spires

He was most apologetic. He had seen our lights and heard our engine running, and had noticed we had been there for awhile. So he went to the office to check, the envelope with our room key was on the reception desk, he checked the voicemail and heard the increasingly frustrated messages from us.  The receptionist had forgotten to switch the phone and intercom to night service. We grabbed dinner and then turned in for the night.

 

Stomping on the Roof of Parliament House, Canberra

I'm pretty sure there are not too many countries in the world where you can run and jump around on the roof of Parliament House in the Nations Capital. The new Parliament House was our only other stop in Canberra. There is much to see and do in Canberra, you can spend a few days here.  As I've been to Canberra more than once before I let Hubby pick and choose what he wanted to see.  The War Memorial and Parliament House, it was.

 

I am not going to bore you with the details of the House of Representatives and the Senate, you can google it yourself. We were more interested in the actual building itself.  Things like the Aboriginal dot mosaic in the forecourt.

 

 

The Coat of Arms, created by silversmith, Robin Blau.

 

 

The shadows cast within the Great Verandah. Yep, it's actually called the Great Verandah.

 

 

Arthur Boyd was commissioned in 1984 to create a work of art to hang in the Great Hall. The original painting now hangs in a hall on the second floor.

 

 

This is the Great Hall Tapestry and Embroidery that was created from the canvas.

 

The flagmast (according to the booklet we were given it's a flagmast not a flag pole) is on the roof of Parliament House.  And yes you can take an elevator up to the roof, walk to the base of the flagmast, sit on the lawn, admire the view, and be amazed at the fact that right underneath the flagmast is the Member's Hall. 

 

 

A direct quote from the Parliament of Australia website, "A visit to the Shop is a "must" for overseas and interstate visitors, as well as locals."  I guess if the shop is a must, then these are some of the must buys. (we didn't buy anything). You could pretty much Prime Ministerfy your entire house!

 cup & saucer with the Coat of Arms

 Perhaps a coffee mug with a face of a former Prime Minister

 

 a bottle of Senator or Frontbencher or Backbencher or Fence Sitter or Whip wine

 

  or a tea towel with the faces of all our Prime Ministers. 

They Gave Their Lives - Australian War Memorial, Canberra

Jo-Anne lives in Canberra, with her husband and two kids. Her kids are 7 and 5. I've not met Oliver or Sophie. I haven't seen Jo-Anne and Mick since 1996. I've been to the Australian War Memorial before, so I left Hubby there for the morning, while I spent the morning with Jo-Anne and her family. We chatted about Guides, travels, mutual friends, Mexico, families, jobs, and more. I was gone for a few hours and it was so good to see Jo again.  

Back at the War Memorial still wasn't done.  So I had a little bit of time for myself. I didn't go through the museum that is within the Memorial, I did spend time in the Commemorative Courtyard at the Pool of Reflection and Eternal Flame. It was very calm and peaceful. 

 

 

Above the courtyard and outside the Hall of Memory is the Roll of Honour. The names of almost every Australian who has died in war since 1885 are engraved in a long series of bronze panels. That's more than 102,000 people.  Just seeing the size of the bronze panels gives you some sense of the magnitude of the lives lost. This is only half, if that. Visitors have placed poppies next to names that are significant to them.

 

 

The archways name the battlefields on which Australians have fought.

 

The Hall of Memory sent goosebumps down my arms, and brought tears to myeyes. It is awe- inspiring. See the 5 stained glass windows in the photo below? There are 15 within the Hall, each window represents a defining quality of the Australian servicemen and women at war.

 

 

At the centre of the Hall is the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier. Behind the tomb are 4 pillars that represent earth, air, fire and water, which in turn represent all the landscapes and climates where Australians have fought and died.

 

The tomb is right below the dome. The mosaic in the dome depicts the soles of the dead rising from the earth towards their spiritual home, represented by a glowing sun within the Southern Cross.

 

 

The walls of the Hall of Memory are covered in one of the world's largest mosaics (6 million plus enameled glass tiles). The figures are a soldier, sailor, airman, and a service woman.

 

 airman detail


 soldier detail

 

The Australian War Memorial stands at one end of Anzac Parade and Parliament House (both old and new) are at the other.

Road Trip - Merimbula to Canberra

The obvious choice would be to continue up the coast on the Pacific Highway to Sydney. The obvious choice? Yes.  They route we took? No.  Hubby had heard that the Australian War Memorial in Canberra had a very good aviation section.  So off we went on the very winding Snowy Mountains Highway.

 

Hubby was quite taken with some of the place names on the map. Wolumla, Tantawangalo, Bemboka, Big Bog Creek, Bombala, Nimmitabel, Wanniassa, Tuggeranong.  We made two stops. One in Bemboka for lunch at the Pie Shop. Lee had recommended we stop here for lunch.  Good idea. For a tiny town (pop. 350) the Pie Shop was packed. The crews working the area all stopped in for lunch too. We each had a pie (steak and mushroom for Hubby, potato for me), a custard tart each for dessert and we were on our way again.

 

 

Our second stop was at Pipers Lookout. It was so shrouded in mist that there was nothing to see.  Our only stops were for petrol, toilets and to change drivers. Hubby drove into Canberra and to our hotel, and hated it. The big roundabouts, and they are huge, terrified him. We stayed at The Rex. It was like something straight out of the 70's. Which could be why they are undergoing some major renovations now.  However it was clean and cheap.

 

Road Trip - Melbourne to Merimbula

 

 

When we were booking our trip home to Australia, we have flights from Vancouver to LA to Hobart, then Sydney to LA to Vancouver. We hadn't booked Hobart to Melbourne to Sydney. Mainly because we couldn't decide on dates. In the end that was a good thing. We flew from Hobart to Melbourne with my parents who were on their way to New Zealand. Then we hired a car to drive from Melbourne to Sydney and see some sights. Hubby's bright idea was to drive from Melbourne to Adelaide, then up to Cooper Pedy and Alice Springs, turn right in the desert and head to Mt Isa, and then down to Sydney. Okay.... Not going to happen, have you ever looked at a map of Australia? Not to mention, we are not driving in the desert in a tiny little Toyota Corolla hatchback. Maybe next time. 

 

Instead we (I) decided on the coastal route.  That was all I decided, once we picked up the car and hit the highway Hubby was in charge of directions and stops. He apparently doesn't like to stop much, an likes to go as far as possible.  We didn't stop in Victoria at all. We drove through Morwell, Traralgon,   Sale, Bairnsdale, Lakes Entrance, Orbost and Mallacoota. Finally stopping in Merimbula just over the Victoria/NSW border.

 

Lucky for us, my Dad has a cousin in Merimbula. I felt a bit weird phoning someone I hadn't seen since 1988.  That's over 20 years ago, I wasn't even sure Lee would know who I was. But Dad had said if we were in Merimbula we should give Lee a call.  Lee and his wife, Sue, own and operate the Comfort Inn and they very kindly put us up for the night, cooked us breakfast the next morning and took us on a whirlwind sightseeing tour of Merimbula. It would be nice to spend a couple of days there, but Hubby had an itinerary in mind.

 

Muddle-Headed Melbourne

Muddle-headed = stupid, blundering, confused.

I wouldn't actually call Melbourne any of the above. But there was certainly the odd thing or two that made us laugh.

Did you know Melbourne has an Icehouse? Seem unlikely doesn't it? Australia is not exactly a hotbed of ice hockey or figure skaters. But Australia is traditionally a nation of battlers and sports lovers. So maybe... one day...

 

The Icehouse is home to 2 Olympic sized ice skating rinks, The Olympic Winter Institute of Australia, Melbourne Ice (Melbourne's team in the Australian Ice Hockey League - did you even know Australia had an ice hockey league?), ice hockey, figure skating, curling and speed skating, Aussie Skate School and more. The IIHF 2011 World Championships Division II will be played at the Icehouse in April. Australia is one of 6 countries who will be vying for promotion to Division 1 for 2012.

 

Everyone knows Melbourne gets really hot in the summer. Temperatures can exceed 40+c.  So why then did the Southern Star Big Wheel buckle in the heat? Opened in December 2008,  a heat wave caused the structure to buckle and crack and it was subsequently closed in January 2009.  This thing cost millions to build, was only open for a month, and has been closed ever since.  Not good planning. This is all that remains:

 

 

It used to look like this:

 photo thesouthernstar.com.au

There's a bike share program, which seems like a really good idea. There are 600 bikes at 50 stations across Melbourne.  The idea is to promote cycling for trips under 10km in and around the CBD. The only problem we could see is that helmets are compulsory, and there are not helmets at the bike stations.  

 

(we've since learnt that you can buy a helmet for $5.00 from a number of locations across the city).

My favourite Aussie animals are the wombat, echidna and platypus. Wombats are big, but not normally this big.

A Couch to Take in the Plane

We saw this at an outdoor store in Sydney and at $48 for the sale price we half thought about buying it. How cool would it be to take it in the plane with us? But sanity won out. It would have to be deflated every night and every time we left the campsite or the wind would blow it away. Instead we spent a good 15 minutes sitting in it in the store, relaxing in the air conditioning out of the way of the 34c heat with 85% humidity.

Acland Street, St Kilda

Acland Street, St Kilda it a nightmare for anyone watching what they eat.  Acland Street is known for its cake shops, some of which date from the 1930's - the shops, not the cakes.

 

We had lunch at the Acland Cake Shop for Nicole's birthday. Instead of a birthday cake we each had a slice of sugary goodness...

 Rocky Road
 Chocolate Log
 Brandy Snap
 French Vanilla Slice

Iconic Melbourne

As a child I spent quite a bit of time in Melbourne. My paternal Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles and Cousins all lived there. My brother and I spent a huge chunk of our school holidays there every year.  

Certain things I associated with going to Melbourne - The MCG, the Zoo, Queen Victoria Markets, going to the cricket and AFL games, The Arts Centre, Fitzroy Gardens and the Fairy Tree, trains, the Children's Hospital (I wasn't a patient, my gram volunteered there), Maccas and...

Trams - this is an old W Series tramcar, they are still in service but more and more trams are the new ones. 

 

Hook Turns - turning right from the left lane so you don't sit on the tram tracks. Hubby refused to drive in Melbourne because of the hook turns, "There's traffic everywhere. It's too confusing."

 

All way pedestrian crossings. They have these in Sydney too. So much quicker to be able to cross diagonally rather than make two crossings.

 

Metered parking in the middle of streets. This is probably available elsewhere, but to me it's so Melbourne.

 

As is footpaths that are extra wide to allow for motorbike parking

Georges on Collins Street - a high end store that my Gram used to take my cousin, Sally and I to as a treat. I remember her buying us dresses there. The building is still there but the store no longer exists.  Established in 1880 "Georges was designed to be the finest place to shop in the wealthiest city in the world."

 

The Clocks at Flinders Street Station - a very popular meeting place, "meet me under the clocks at Flinders Street," has probably been uttered by most Melbournians and more than a few tourists.  In the early 80's they were removed to be replaced with a digital display. It caused quite the outrage and the decision was reversed.

 

Luna Park - there is one in Sydney that is bigger, but the Melbourne Luna Park is the first one I went to.  The face is actually quite hideous and scary. 

Melbourne is a maze of laneways and arcades that weave their way throughout the city. They are were a hidden secret of cafes, bars, small shops, and hidden art. Now everyone knows they are there and you can do walking tours of the laneways. I particularly like the graffiti art.

Melbourne may have changed over the years, and although a lot of places have come and gone, the Melbourne of my childhood is still there.

 

 

 

Melbourne Highlight #4 - Eureka Tower Skydeck 88

 

After dinner in the tramcar, we rolled ourselves over to Skydeck 88 in the Eureka Tower.  Opened in 2006 the Eureka Tower is named after the Eureka Stockade. Which probably doesn’t mean much to non-Australians, but most Aussies learn about it in school. The Eureka Stockade was a rebellion  during the gold rush in Victoria in 1854. The blue glass represents the blue background of the Stockade flag, the gold crown at the top of the building represents the gold rush and the red stripe represents the blood split during the rebellion.

 

The Tower stands 297m high, 91 storeys and is one of only 7 buildings in the world over 90 storeys. It was once the tallest residential tower in the world, but has since beens surpassed by buildings in Dubai. For now it remains the 2^nd tallest in Australia, the tallest in Melbourne and the 50^th tallest in the world.

 

On the 88^th floor is an observation deck, hence the name Skydeck 88.  The Skydeck is still the tallest public vantage point in the Southern Hemisphere. The majority of the Skydeck is enclosed there is small outdoor area, called the terrace, which gets closed in high winds. Lucky for us it was not windy.

 

For extra bucks you can experience The Edge. It’s  a glass cube that slides out of the building. You can’t take camera’s in there so we decided not to spend the $$ for it.

 

There are numerous viewpoints and telescopes/binoculars around the Skydeck highlighting specific landmarks in and around Melbourne. We also downloaded a free iPhone app that gave an audio tour with lots of interesting but useless information.