Wanderung 20

Australian Walkabout

May - June 2009

Monday, June 8th, Canberra, Visiting the Parliament Buildings on the Queens Birthday

Bob:

Fairy Godmother offered us the use of her second car to get around during the day, and we gladly took her up on the offer. We set off after breakfast and I drove slowly and carefully to adapt to the left-hand side driving. Since I had driven on the left during our three week tour of Ireland in 2005 (Wanderung 9), the basic pattern of traffic for turns and roundabouts (clockwise rather than counter-clockwise circulation) came back rapidly, thank goodness. Still, I had to constantly guard against the habitual patterns of driving on the right. As Neville had mentioned about his driving in the U.S., one of the most difficult things to get used to when driving on the opposite side was simply the different direction of glance to access the rearview mirror. To direct my glance up and to the left for a quick look at the cars behind me rather than up and to the right took a conscious effort.

The Queen's Birthday was celebrated that day, which fortunately meant I encountered only very light traffic and that was a godsend. It is so much easier to adapt to new driving conditions without some impatient person tailgating or honking their horn at you. We drove out into the country on Cotter Road to an observatory perched on a small mountain just outside Canberra.

As I had hoped, a road wound its way up to the very top of the mountain where I found a parking lot. Unfortunately, we learned that at least two telescopes and other structures had been destroyed by the wildfires of 2003. Karen had also told us about those wildfires as they had reached the suburbs of Canberra and destroyed some houses in her neighborhood.

However, the view from the top of the mountain was outstanding. We could see the new growth of pines, I think, that had replaced the forest of eucalyptus trees on the slopes of the mountain below us, and off toward the horizon was the city of Canberra nestled beside its lakes. The trunks of the trees right around us were just the charred remains of the old forest, but the valleys below still looked green and inviting.

The valleys on the other side of the mountain, however, looked downright deserted by comparison. One valley looked like mostly pasture land and the next one over looked like virgin forest. I'm sure there may have been people down there somewhere, but for being that close to the capital of Australia it was surprisingly deserted.

Monika:

Karen had an older car, a Toyota Echo, that she offered Bob for the day. We started out by getting lost in the subdivision. It seems that in all of Canberra and its suburbs there is not a straight street or 90 degree intersection to be found. Luckily I had the GPS and it was a holiday (the Queens birthday) so traffic was light and we could recover from mistakes. I finally got us out to the major route and we turned away from Canberra and went up, up, up to an astronomical observatory.

From there we had a marvelous view of Canberra and environs, but we could also see the scars that a 2003 wild fire had left. Three of the telescopes had been completely burned out and only one had been replaced. Also the woods surrounding the summit were composed of small pine trees with old burnt stumps laying around it for the most part.

Althought the forest was just new growth, it seemed to be a great place for biking. There were several mountain bike trails down the mountain, one of them marked as being dangerous. The people we saw going down the trails on mountain bikes had been driven up by van, but we also passed several bikers who huffed and puffed their way up to the top on the road, after which they had a marvelous trip down.

We walked back to the car and when we were going to start, I said, "Look Bob, a roo!". And there it was sitting looking at us, luckily long enough for me to get my roo picture, before it hopped off into the forest. But now I knew, that I had to be on kangaroo lookout, just like in America I am on deer lookout.

Bob:

Since we had run out of time and had not really been able to see either the old or new Parliament Buildings during our Volksmarch the previous day, I metaphorically girded up my loins and drove back into central Canberra to see them. Karen had mentioned parking right underneath the new Parliament Building, and sure enough it was open and had plenty of empty spaces. The sign said parking was limited to 3 hours, but the folks at the information desk inside assured us it would be OK to park for longer periods.

That was just as well because it gave us plenty of time to see both the new and old Parliament buildings. The new Parliament building is impressive in both size and beauty, although the decoration is more of a minimalist modern style. We very much enjoyed the huge tapestry hanging in the great hall that depicts a eucalyptus forest as well as the inlaid wood floors, marble columns, and so forth. My favorite exhibit was an original of the 1297 version of the Magna Carta. I hadn't realized that kings after King John were also required to sign the Magna Carta. This version, the one signed by King Edward in 1297 and was considered the final, definitive version. As I do not read Latin, I very much appreciated the translations of key provisions that was provided on the wall behind the Magna Carta.

Monika:

We now drove back into the city, which turned out to be easier than expected, since the road led us directly to the Parliament Building and there were signs for Parking, so we parked the car in a nice 3 hour parking space underneath the new Parliament Building. We were just in time to join a tour. This was very interesting, since we not only got an introduction to the building but also to the government of Australia. Australia's government is a parliamentary system like Great Britain. But unlike Britain, the upper house, the Senate, is elected. Like in America, the Senate gives the same number of senators to each province and the representatives to the House are elected on a per capita bases, so that a populous state like New South Wales has a lot more representatives than Tasmania, for instance. The prime minister is the head of the executive and elected by the majority party in the House. An interesting part of their proceedings is that, like in Britain, the House has a daily question session, where the Prime Minister has to answer questions from the House. Wouldn't that have been interesting when President Bush was in office? The House and the Senate chamber each have a ground level where the members sit, a visitors gallery, and at the top a soundproof visitors gallery where they can bring school classes and explain to them what is going on without disturbing the proceedings on the floor. Each desk on the floor has a microphone and there are 8 TV cameras around the chamber to broadcast the proceedings.


 

Bob:

The Australian Parliament consists of a Lower House and Upper House or Senate. Both were very nice. I would like to see the "Question Hour" when the Prime Minister has to come and respond to all the questions by any other member of Parliament. That seems like a useful exercise to me in keeping the P.M. honest and breaking down the isolation that could otherwise occur for the chief executive.

Monika:

After the tour we took the elevator to the roof from where we had a wonderful view over Canberra. Four steel girders came from each corner together to hold the flag pole flying the Australian flag. This flag can be seen almost all over Canberra. The flag structure reflected wonderfully in the pyramid shaped skylight over the great hall. We had of course fun trying to capture this in pictures.

In the mezzanine there were several exhibits. Of particular interest was one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta. Very appropriate! But it was lunchtime and there was a nice little cafeteria where we had a nice Australian lunch (sausage roll for me, something healthy for Bob). The Parliament House also had a wonderful gift shop where we found a beautiful tie for Bob patterned after aboriginal art. Just the thing for his tie collection.


 


 

Bob:

The Old Parliament building had two main exhibit areas: a Museum of Australian Democracy in the basement and some preserved offices of the old Parliament circa 1988, when Parliament moved to its new building, in the upper floors. Australia uses the British Parliamentary system but has been influenced by the U.S. method of popular elections for both the houses of Parliament. I was surprised, however, to find that Australia has no specific Bill of Rights although that is apparently currently being considered.

Apparently there was no conscription or military draft in Australia in WWI, but it was a heck of political struggle according to the museum exhibits in the basement. We both enjoyed the well-preserved offices of the last Prime Minister in the old Parliament building, Bob Hawkes, and the preserved upper and lower house rooms. Some old TV equipment in one room were used to emphasize the point that Hawkes was the first "TV" Prime Minister who used the novel medium to communicate regularly with the Australian people.

Monika:

By now we had spent three hours at the new Parliament House. Since it was a holiday, I asked one of the guards, whether the three hour limit would be enforced on a holiday. He looked at me strangely and then said: "As far as I know it never has been enforced." Thus reassured, we left the car in its nice spot and walked down the grassy mall to the old parliament house. It had similar chambers as the new one except for all the modern equipment like TV cameras and microphones. But otherwise it was very similar although much smaller.

In addition, the old parliament building houses the museum of the Australian democracy, where the struggle for democracy is laid out. This was extremely interesting. It seems that South Australia was the most progressive of the provinces giving women the right to vote very early.

Bob:

We ended up the day at the National Library where we checked our email and then drove back home before it became dark because I really did not want to face the unique driving conditions after dark. Arriving at Karen's safely, we had another nice evening watching news on TV, eating a very nice meal, and chatting away. Karen made the very valid point that we really shouldn't be "bottom fishing" as I think she put it, on our choices of hotels while traveling around Australia. To do so, she argued, would give us an unnecessarily negative impression of her native land. Although I felt that our impressions of Australia had overall been quite positive, she did have a point and we agreed to try some more upscale accommodations on our visit in Queensland.

Monika:

We finally were overloaded with information on Australian democratic principles and headed back to the car. Since it was only 4 we decided to stop by the library for a quick check of our emails. Although the library was only a few blocks from the parliament and I had a map and a GPS I managed to miss the turnoff so that we were at one point heading over the bridge but in the wrong direction! We did manage to turn around and got to the library on the second pass. We stopped after only 30 minutes, so that we would get home before it got dark. Again I missed a turn off, but this time we were in one of the circle routes around the Parliament area and it was only a matter of hitting the correct exit the second time around. After we got on the correct road out of the center we got home without any problems. As my excuse, let me just say that whoever designed Canberra loved circular routes. I don't think there is a 90 degree intersection anywhere. And, of course, just when you figure out where you are going, they throw you a curve like having a clover leaf rather than an intersection with a light. Oh well, I assume that after a while one could get used to it.

I was glad to get back home, where we were greeted by Bentley and Button and another wonderful meal from Karen.

Copyright 2009 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt
Index
Prolog Map of Australian Walkabout Epilog

May 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
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3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30
31
June 2009
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30

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