Thursday in the Capitol

First stop off the rank this morning was the National Film & Sound Archives which I thoroughly enjoyed. The building has a distinctive art deco feel to it which kind of set the scene. We were taken into a small theatre and saw snippets of movies that had special significance to Aust. We saw a snippet of what is left of a 103yr old movie about Ned Kelly!!! which is the oldest piece of film they have in the archives. We saw a snip of a "Crocodile Dundee Movie", the wedding on "Neighbours" between Craig Mclaughlin and Kylie Minogue which is remains having the largest audience of all times for a single episode of anything (can't remember their character names), a montage of "Bandstand" episodes that were hilarious showing a very young Rolf Harris, Jackie Weaver, John Laws etc. My personal favourites were a clip of a women's woodchopping contest with some hearty fulsome types woodchopping in doubles with the old hand held saws whilst wearing dresses and and then the axe chopping again in dresses!!! The commentary was sexist to say the least and talked about 'Sheila's' chopping wood and when they had finished they could get back to the kitchen to cook dinner (chops, LOL). This was an actual news report that was played before a movie back in the day. Truely, it was a sight to behold. The second clip that had everyone in stitches was the clip from "Skippy", - how did we ever believe Skippy actually 'talked'. It was hilarious watching it with our kids because half of them wondered why the boy was firstly hugging a kangaroo instead of eating it, LOL. Ah those were the days when life was much more simple!!

We then moved into the interactive display part where you could see clips of all sorts of movies, tv programs and radio pieces. "Dr Paul" was on one set of the radio pieces (no one under 50yrs will know what I am talking about here, LOL) but did not get to hear that. There was a dress that Dame Nellie Melba wore, plus a friesan cow print suit that some rock and roller wore back in the 50's that caught my eye. The place is a veritable treasure and could have spent hours there. Not only have they featured Australian made movies, programs etc but any movie etc that an Australian has been in that may have had interest.

We had lunch at Commonwealth Park where the students could get rid of some energy on the playground equipement that was provided.