The Nation's Capital

We had a fine trip to Canberra Sunday. There was so much more there than we could have seen in one day, but we made the most of it and had a FULL day of touring. The day started out at the Parliament Building. A little background here would help. Canberra was picked as Australia's capital in the 1920's and designed from scratch. As such, everything geometrically lines up. Obviously very appealing to me. In this picture we're at the Parliament House which is the very centre of the hub-like city. The largest spoke goes out to the War Memorial behind me. But notice how the memorial lines up with the mountain.

They finished building a grand parliament building in 1988. It cost $1.1 billion! Yipes. But it's very impressive. They demolished a hill and then built the building where the hill was, and then put the dirt back on top! So there's grass everywhere. This is Liz and I in front of the main "Grand Verandah".

Inside I got up close with a copy of the 1297 Magna Carta. i.e. the basis for our legal system. I thought it was very cool. All I could think of was my 80-year-old Law professor getting super excited.

This is William and I in the Great Hall. Incidentally, the next day a feast was being held here at lunch in honour of none other than Steven Harper! I wanted to leave him a note but decided against it.

After a fact-filled tour of the parliament we headed to another fantastic hotspot... i.e. the mint! Only the actual minting part is closed for refurbishment until 2009. So they had a small section with a museum and gift shop at the front. And we got to press our own $1 coins! Which we could legally spend (if we wanted to.. they cost $2.50 to make).












Ok, enough of the learning, on to the fun learning. We headed next to Questicon, the Science Centre.




Liz really likes this shot of William, me, and the toddler. haha... but seriously, she was a visionary.
















And after Grant trying to explain Pascal's principles for hydraulics, Liz just wanted a shot with the Beetle. It's not as if I spent 2 years doing this stuff at work or anything.... oh wait...














How could we resist visiting Canberra and not taking a side trip to the Canadian High Commission? It was closed, of course, being Sunday, but that didn't stop us from enjoying our bilingual embassy's grounds.


We finished the afternoon with a visit to the National War Memorial. This is the eternal flame.

Finally, we returned to the Parliament House for sunset. I can safely say that this is the only building where I've played frisbee on the roof.

All in all, it was an incredible day with lots of stuff to do. It was a great final hoorah for William before he headed home on Monday.