Sunday, June 7th, Canberra, Volksmarch
Bob: Our main goal was to do the Canberra Volksmarch, so after we had breakfast and Karen dropped us off at the National Library, we started on the designated loop that circled around the Parliament district or federal government district of Canberra. Canberra is quite pretty partly because it has several large, scenic lakes in the middle of it and partly because the central business district is isolated two kilometers North of the central government area. Karen first drove us around the goverment area a bit so that we could get a feel for the arrangement of the major buildings. Then she dropped us off next tot he National Library and we started walking the Volksmarch loop. First we crossed to the other side of the lake and then started walking on a shoreside path. Along the way we had nice views of the new Parliament building across the lake and pretty settings as well as some sculpture on our side.
|
Monika: Today we thought we would walk the Canberra Volksmarch. In the morning we looked at the map with Karen, and she suggested we include the War Memorial in the loop, and showed us on the map where it was. So after breakfast, she bundled us in the car and drove us a little around first so that we would get a feel for where things were and then dropped us off at the National Library. Canberra is a designed town, much like Washington D.C., only much newer. The main focus is a man-made lake. To the south of it is Parliament Zone and a lot of government buildings, and to the north lies the CBD of Canberra. The new Parliament House is up on a hill and visible from everywhere. Across the lake from it is the War Memorial. The National Library is on the south side of the lake together with the National Gallery of Arts and the Portrait Gallery. We joined the Volksmarch by crossing the bridge across the lake. We walked along the lake enjoying the sculptures and the views of the old and new parliament buildings. |
Bob: Our first stop was the National War Memorial. We walked up to the memorial on one side of the ANZAC Parade street, passing several interesting statues and monuments. One that affected me personally was the Vietnam War Memorial as I am a veteran of that period. |
Monika: When we got to the point where the road to the War Memorial turned off we went off our route to see the Memorial. The wide boulevard that leads to the War Memorial is called ANZAC Parade and on ANZAC day people walk up the road to honor their war dead. Along the road and on both sides are memorials to the different wars, like Vietnam and Korea, and the different branches of the Armed Forces. By the time you reach the War Memorial you already feel steeped in war history. |
Bob: The National War Memorial has two distinct parts. The upper floor is a shrine somewhat reminiscent of the ANZAC Memorial in Melbourne but with a large, clear dome on top. The heart of the shrine is the tomb of the Australian Unknown Soldier from WWI. The shrine's exterior walls had large panels of stained glass that gave it a solemn, church-like ambience. On the interior walls were four mosaic pictures for the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Nursing contingents, and four columns at the back also represented those four basic parts of the Australian armed forces, I think. All together the shrine was very impressive as a remembrance to Australia's fallen soldiers, sailors, airmen, and nurses. |
Monika: The memorial itself is a museum about war. It has, of course the memorial room with the tomb to the unknown soldier. But in addition it has many more sections on war. It even has a section on the Air Force and a rather realistic film on WWI dog fights. |
Bob: But the second part of the war memorial was totally unexpected. Contained in the lower stories in the base of the building was essentially an exquisite war museum, complete with real artifacts from different wars. I, of course, was mostly interested in the beautifully displayed WWI and WWII aircraft that matched the fine examples shown in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in the U.S. Even more impressive was the recreation of aerial warfare in WWI and WWII in the exhibit area down below at the far end of the memorial. The WWI movie, for example, was a wide-screen, panoramic recreation of WWI aerial warfare and it was just unbelievably real. I have never seen a huge WWI-style aerial dogfight depicted as vividly and convincingly as that. Lest you think that the war memorial was glamourizing war, let me quickly add that the brutality and nastiness of the war was also quite accurately represented. In that dogfight sequence, for example, an Australian pilot shoots down an enemy but is then shot down himself with the airplane cockpit bursting into uncontrollable flames that ultimately force him to bail out without a parachute and fall to his death. To see one of my personal nightmares (i.e. fire in the cockpit) brought vividly to life was disconcerting to say the least. |
Monika: All this information on war started to give me the heebee-jeebies on a very gut level reaction. [To explain: Monika endured the U.S. bombing of Hamburg during WWII. The front of her apartment was blown off while she was cowering in the basement.] I sat outside for a while and even went into their remembrance hall. But even this one was not nearly as peaceful as the one in Melbourne. Stained glass pictures of soldiers of all kinds kept staring at me. So I went back to a bench at the entrance where I waited for Bob. After a while I went to look for Bob and of course found him in the air force wing. |
Bob: So two hours later we finally resumed our Volksmarch route by walking back down the ANZAC parade route, past the carillon and on across the lake. |
Monika: After the War Memorial we returned to the lake at which point it started raining. But we were dressed correctly so we just kept on walking. The carillon that was standing at the edge of the water started playing, giving us a nice musical encouragement for our walk. It was also a very beautiful sight with weeping willows around the carillon that just had just changed into their fall colors of a beautiful yellow. After crossing a bridge back to the south side, we stopped at the National Gallery of Art hoping for a cafe, since by now it was lunch time. No such luck, but we did find some nice sculptures in a small garden just outside the building. So we just kept walking along the lake, where we came to some people sailing remote-controlled sailboats and some beautiful black swans hoping for a handout. |
Bob: At the old bus depot we found a very extensive arts, crafts, and exotic cuisines fair in a warehouse next to a tourist attraction called the Glass Factory. Lunch was crepes for Monika and a stuffed baked potato for me, after which we succumbed to the allure of some coasters and place mats decorated with Aboriginal art designs. Lunch gave us the energy to backtrack a bit to see the Glass Factory, which is an old powerhouse converted to a huge facility making what I would call artistic glass pieces. For some reason I always find the process of working glass to be fascinating, and that place had a program for regular folks to come in and make their own bookends, paperweights, or decorative globs of glass. We watched a young woman make a quite pretty piece of glass while we were there. |
Monika: We were by now close to the railroad station, where we thought should be some food courts. But we did not quite make it to the railroad station. We were captured by the Old Bus Depot, which on Sundays turns into a farmers and craft market, with, of course, a food court. First things first, we stopped for lunch. Bob had a baked potato with stuff on it, while I opted for a crepe with ham and pineapple --- think Hawaiian Pizza only on a crepe, very yummy. After lunch we kept looking at all the stuff available and we finally found some place mats that were made out of material with aboriginal painting on it. I also could not resist some yarn since I was running low on yarn. Next door to the old bus depot was the glass works, a glass blowing factory for tourists, where you could actually sign up to do some glass work yourself. We watched for a while and I wished we had more time so that I could have tried my hand at it. We got back onto our Volksmarch route and walked through some old neighborhoods. Suddenly I heard squawking overhead, and we saw some beautiful red and green parrots alighting in the tree above us. Of course, we had to stop to try to get some pictures. |
Bob: Continuing our Volksmarch loop, we curled back past the New Parliament building and Old Parliament building before coming back to our starting point at the National Library. It was just about ready to close up for the night at 5:00 p.m., but I managed to get a call in to Karen on a public phone and she picked us up shortly thereafter. Karen takes cooking quite seriously and enjoys doing it well, so we had a nice gourmet dinner and evening chat before turning in for the night. |
Monika: Going on we finally got to the Old Parliament House and then the New Parliament House. The Old Parliament House was always thought of as provisional until the New Parliament House was finished in 1988. It now houses a museum on democracy in Australia. Unfortunately, it was getting late and we were getting tired. So we did not stop at either Parliament House but just kept on going back to the library. It was just closing, but we did manage to call Karen, and Fairy Godmother came to get us. She had a wonderful lamb stew made during the day and we enjoyed a great meal. Imagine, not only Bed and Breakfast but also gourmet dinners and transportation included. Thank you Karen. |
| Index |
| Prolog | Map of Australian Walkabout | Epilog |
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||