9/8: Canberra: National Gallery, Botanic Gardens & National Museum

Though The Canberra Rex Hotel was a fair hike while walking from the city center and considerably more expensive than we normally pay on these extended trips, it was worth every penny compared to our hotel in Sydney.

Zachary: Proof for you that there are Target stores in Australia! We stopped in at
one the day before on the way back from the Au. War Memorial so I could buy
some socks as I was so cold and we still had a long way back to our hotel.
Miss you so much and hope work at Target and the hotel and Metro are all going well.

Learned our lesson the day before and caught a bus near the hotel back to Jolimont to dump Steven’s bag again. We had been told to buy a day long ticket that cost AUD$ 8.80 each vs a single ticket for 4.40 – no brainer that one with all the bus rides we’d need to get today. The Canberra bus drivers were a wonderful lot and all the ones we talked to knew all the route numbers, their platforms at Jolimont and where they went – that made it so much easier as you might imagine.

A trip to the National Gallery of Australia was our 1^st destination for the day. The Gallery has an excellent collection of Australian colonial and Aboriginal art which was the lure for us.

Our welcome sign at the National Gallery

The Aboriginal Memorial:
These ceremonial poles, dated 1987-1988 from the Northern Territory,
 were a major feature as you entered the Gallery.

Ivy: Thought of you here as these are bark paintings from before 1980. BTW, I have plenty more bark painting photos from the Gallery if you'd like me to email you them?

I don't know about you when visiting galleries or museums in general but I often tend to simply glance at 90% of the paintings, sculptures, artifacts, etc I see because of the sheer volume of them. This was one of those exceotions for me though as the title immediately grabbed my attention and I then read the entire piece. In my humbe opinion, it should be required reading for all people everywhere as each country could insert its own issues that affect segments of their populations.

We thought we'd explore this temporary exhibit as when would
we likely see art from this region ever again? A couple of works below.

There were also some significant European works but I've only included photos of two.

Called both Refugees and The Emigrants; certanly apt for Australia.
By Frenchman Honore Daumier

Eugenio: I thought of you when I saw this Joan Miro painting called Landscape painted in 1927.

One of those paintings I normally would have glossed over but I couldn't do that 
when I saw it was painted by Denver artist Clyfford Still. There's a museum dedicated
 just to his works that recently opened in Denver. Steven and I should make a point of 
going there after seeing our first work of his 'down under.'

We were surprised and delighted there was also an impressive and extensive Indian and Asian collection; it certainly whetted our appetites for much more of the same in the coming weeks and months!

How wonderful it was seeing works from Cambodia again as it is without a doubt
one of our favorite countries we've visited so far.

Certainly NOT from the Asia exhibit but I liked it.

While waiting for the bus to take us back to Jolimont Centre, I couldn't help taking this sign photo!

The bus driver very kindly dropped us off at an unscheduled spot so we could take a shortcut to the Au. National Botanic Gardens; otherwise we would have gotten there a good 30 minutes later. 

I don’t know how long our luck will last but again, we got to the Gardens just in time for the 2pm guided tour which we hadn’t known about in advance. The Gardens finally opened in 1970 after being planned before WWII; the lack of funds and workers during and after the war years delayed their opening. The Gardens is 90 hectares in size but only 45 are cultivated now.

You can't escape wattles even at the entryway, I found out! Wattle Day (who knew!) is celebrated
 on 9/1 when the wattles bloom: the wattle is 1 of 2 iconic plants in Australia,
our guide said, the other being the eucalyptus tree.

The Gardens also operates the National Seed Bank developing a collection of Australian native seeds for conservation and research.

Hey, even nore wattles!

The Eucalyptus Tree you see everywhere in Australia.

Anne, our guide, told us that all the plants, trees, etc at the Gardens are native to Australia, certainly far different than the Gardens we’d visited in Sydney a few days previously. Again unlike the Gardens in Sydney, these contained very few flowers. I read in the brochure that approximately 1/3 of the country’s diverse flora can be explored in the Garden’s bushland setting. 

Again like Sydney’s Gardens, the Canberra Gardens are also a living laboratory to scientific research on plant classification, ecology, etc.

Our first sighting of kangaroos, just running wild at the Gardens - were we delighted to see them! They were a highlight of the tour for us and the other 5 people on the tour.

Anne next took us through the Rainforest exhibit which was representatative
of the various rainforests throughout  eastern Australia.

I had asked Anne before the tour started its duration because we knew we needed to get the 3:30 bus to return to Jolimont Centre before heading out again to the National Museum. We couldn’t miss it as the bus only stopped at the Gardens every 90 minutes and our return coach to Sydney left at 6pm. Anne said it was an hour long tour and mentioned that she would be glad to drop us off after the tour at either Jolimont or the Museum. We took her up on incredibly kind and thoughtful gesture and thus saved a huge amount of traveling time.

The Map of Dreams is a garden made up of maps and symbols,
where every step you take equates to 100 kms across the continent.

 The National Museum describes itself as ‘where our stories come alive’ 

and as a place that celebrates Australians and their storytelling culture.

We saw Circa, a 12 minute multimedia experience in a rotating theater relaying 12,000 years of the country’s history; we were told not to blink so we wouldn’t miss it a few centuries!

I remember Anne at the National Gardens telling us a friend of hers growing up inland had never seen water til she was 7 and didn't know what it was.

Sounds terribly familiar, doesn't it?

Remembering the Official Apology from our visit to Parliament House just yesterday.

We had a full, almost two days in the Australian Capital Territory and were tired when we took the 6pm coach for the 3.5 hour ride back to Sydney.