Yesterday ....

Was an interesting and long day. First stop on the way to Canberra, (pronounced Canbra according to the locals (Aussis) and spelt Kamberra originally by the indigenous people of the area) was at a little town called Berrima. It's claim to fame is that it is like a reproduction English Village (go figure, LOL) with lots of quaint shops and the oldest continuously licensed pub in Australia - OMG they could twin with the Kentish Hotel!!! (oldest continuously licensed pub in NZ that happens to be located in Waiuku - the old home town, LOL). There were lots of bakery/coffee shops serving devonshire teas etc, and gift shops of many and varied sorts. There was a fancy produce shop that sold olive oils, chutneys etc, several clothes/boutique type shops, an old fashioned lollie shop that truely had every variety known to mankind and maybe then a few more, and my personal favourite, a gift shop that had opened down stairs, next door, as a Christmas shop. The decorations and Christmas regalia were fascinating and it was like a magic fairy land (except it was Christmas but you get my drift). It had miniature villages, old fashioned looking ornaments and a variety of nativity scenes ranging from the cheap and cheerful,to some very expensive china sets that were rich in colour and form.

Finally got everyone back on the buses - you may be impressed, I bought nothing other than a coffee and two bananas!!! and headed on towards our destination. We were to have lunch in the gardens behind the Hyatt Hotel but it was raining and so ended up by eating in an underground bus, carpark!!!! Extremely salubrious, not! We then did a bit of a tiki tour around the main parts of Canberra and as the rain had ceased went to Lake Burley Griffin where we stopped for some fresh air and a run around for the students. There was a chap hiring out paddle boats and a lot of the group got out for a paddle on the lake while the rest of us enjoyed another coffee on dry land. The lake has a fountain in one part of it and that was going as we drove to where we stopped. The bus driver told us the fountain had enough pressure to hold up the bus three times over (useless piece of info #7498, LOL. The next useless piece of information was that every car registered in Canberra, ACT, starts with a Y!

Time to move and off we went to Old Parliament House where we had afternoon tea in the rose garden to the right of the building. No, we didn't have any HRH representatives there, but we had packets of buscuits and a drink supplied by the bus company who is doing our trip, to keep the kids going until dinner. We then had a tour of the Electoral Education Centre situated in Old Parliament House and watched another diarama with moving pictures of people in a 3D kind of way midst the props placed appropriately in the background. The Aussies seem big on this method of imparting info (refer back to oztrek). There was a bit of a potted history on Aussies and how they got the vote - must say, I nodded off towards the end and missed the last bit. We then went into an interactive area and the students got to look up a family member on the electoral roll and answer a couple of multi-choice quizzes on different aspects of voting. Next stop was another room where we were told the makeup of the local, state and federal governments. Think I zoned out in that bit as they were talking about things like senate and ... just remembered I zoned out so have no idea what that bit was on. Several students were then picked out and a mini election was held with scruitineers, ballot papers, voting booths, counting the votes, proportional voting etc so they got to walk through what it is like to vote. Hopefully, some of this information will stay with them. Over here as I have already mentioned, it is illegal not to vote! and you can get fined for not doing so.

We were the last ones there for the day and so finally got on the bus to our accommodation. We are staying at the Australian Institute of Sport!!!!!!! We have an entire wing and there are athletes staying here as well. I have a room to myself and am enjoying that, hence reading and doing this is not interfering with anyone else. After we unpacked and went to eat in the dining room where the athletes eat. OMG real food, brilliantly cooked - all lablelled as to its nutritional value. Real vegetables and a greek salad to die for. Not a processed piece of food in sight!!! I enjoyed every mouthful. No sooner was dinner over when we had our last tour of the day to Sportex which was a complex where there were interactive games to have a go at whilst surrounded by a veritable gallery of photos, medals and memorabillia of the best of the bes sportspeople Australia has had to the present day. There was a bat from Donald Bradman, one of Campo's rugby jumpers, Cathy Freeman's shoes to name a very few pieces. There were Olympic medals galore from Munich and Sydney that I remember. The kids really enjoyed there but we came to a sudden halt when one of the boys shooting basketball hoops, fell over someone else and dislocated his knee. He was taken away by ambulance and one of the staff went with him while the rest of us bought our various groups back and got them settled for the night. I think I got to bed around 11pm. Will call it a night now as it is the same time again and I have been up since 5.45am.

It has been raining on and off since we got here. There are parts of Canberra that remind me of driving into the city from Porirua. There are cycle paths all over the place and it looks as though the place has grown significantly in the last twenty years since I was here last. Then it was like a dormitory town. I was here on a Sunday and I saw one live person the entire day we were here and they were riding a bike. The place seemed beige and entirely shut for the day. The vegetation looks a lot more like NZ here, though there are plenty of gum trees, there are also birches, willows and pine trees. I saw hebes at Old Parliament House and thought they were in fact a Native NZ plant??? maybe not. I actually took a photo yesterday of the (unmown)lawn at Old PH because it was covered in clover. I had been staring at it for awhile, thinking, this doesn't look right and then ping, clover flowers!!! - real grass, LOL. The WM thinks I am crazy but after all the red dirt we see back in WA, its like being back in Kansas Dorothy!