We had a huge couple of days in Canberra.. here goes!
I am probably the biggest fan of Heinz Tinned Spaghetti ever. I was so excited to see that our Canberra hotel had it on the menu for breakfast. Hooray!
So this was a breakfast on the first morning –
We then headed to Cockington Green to spend the morning with Camille and Eveleigh and have lunch there with them. It was the perfect place as there was a lot to keep Eveleigh occupied while we walked around in the manicured gardens and miniature villages. There wasn’t too many people there and thankfully, we got through the whole place before the rain started. It was so cute but we must have been too busy catching up as it was only afterwards that I realized we took hardly any photos of the gardens themselves. Oops!
Camille, Eveleigh and I –
Bill being a proud kinda-Australian –
Cockington Green Gardens-
We then sat down for a long, long lunch with lots of admiring of Eveleigh and she happily grabbed food to munch on and was just so cute the whole time!
Cam’s Chicken Schnitzel was somewhat epic –
My pasta dish was delish… you can just see our raspberry lemonades!
Check out the chippies Bill got with his lunch!
Of course, we needed some obligatory Eveleigh shots –
Could she be any cuter?!
It was so sad saying goodbye but we knew that we would all be together again soon enough. It was so good catching up on home soil and kind of surreal to think of the global friendship we now have!
Bill and I then scurried away to visit the War Memorial. One of my best memories of family holidays was when mum and dad took us to Canberra and of the time we spent at the War Memorial. It was still just as great as I remember, sans the disrespectful people that happened to be there at the same time and by disrespect I mean full on loud conversations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I kid you not – Bill was furious and actually had words with the people who were just as oblivious after he told them how rude they were. It was infuriating.
Here are some shots from the Memorial –
View from the Memorial towards Parliament House –
We were emotionally exhausted by the end of the day. You could spend days in the exhibition areas of the Memorial and is definitely a reason to go back to Canberra. Hopefully by then there may be more of a push towards educating visitors on behavior and respect at such places. Or maybe that is just wishful thinking. 🙁
We got back to the hotel to find out that Steve Jobs had died. We watched the news for a while and then headed to the Harmonie German Club for dinner. It was a fun night there and we were certainly ready for an early night after a long day of being tourists!
The next morning we had to pack up our stuff and check out and we had another big day of being tourists before our flight back to Melbourne. We had the same breakfast as the day before. Spaghetti on toast heaven!
The first place we went to was Old Parliament House to see it a the now Museum of Australian Democracy. We could have spent all day there. We quickly joined a tour so we would get to see everything we wanted to. I nearly fainted when we joined the group. Our tour guide was none other than… Malcolm Mackerras!!! It was just too much!! He was so wonderful, we could have spent all day with him. We walked the corridors and he had so many fantastic stories to share with us.
Here are some photos from our time at Old Parl –
I miss THIS so much 🙁
In the old Senate-
Bill being Speaker of the House –
The office of the Prime Minister –
An office frozen in time –
We then visited the National Library. I wish I had got the chance to work there when I was in Australia. They had a special area dedicated to Australian authors and they were giving different narratives about their life. When it got to Mem Fox talking about Possum Magic, it actually made me cry! Other bonus – the NLA bookstore is absolutely fantastic!
We then spent some time at the National Archives –
The weather was slowly getting worse so we jumped in the car and I gave Bill a look at all of the different Consulates around Canberra. We drove up to Parliament House and decided if we could get a car park undercover, we would run in for a quick visit. We drove straight in and got a great park.. so in we went for a quick zip around Parliament. I have to say, I’ve never felt in awe of the new Parliament compared to my love for the Victorian Parliament House. I thought this would change as I got older but.. nope. I still don’t have an appreciation for the new Parliament. It just doesn’t have that Parliament feeling to me.
View from Parliament with Old Parliament first and then the War Memorial further in the distance –
Our dodgy self portrait in the rain –
We then jumped in the car and headed to the airport for our flight back to Melbourne. It was then that mum rang us to say that dad had been put into hospital. &^!&$!$!##!#!#!##! I nearly ran off the road. Dad had choked on a piece of meat and they couldn’t dislodge it – so he was going to have to be operated on. Mum and dad were going to be picking us up from Tullamarine. So we made plans for mum to leave the keys hidden, we’d get a cab and just hope and pray that dad would be ok. I got an instant headache worrying about Pa and just wanting to get home. Then we got lost going to the airport, had a terrible time returning the stupid hire car and I jut wanted out of Canberra. Thankfully we checked in and got settled in Qantas club to pass the time before our flight and keep our mind off everything at home.
It was then that they announced that we would be delayed 30 minutes, then one hour, then two hours, then three hours. I kid you not. It was a nightmare. In the end, it would’ve been quicker for us to DRIVE to Melbourne than fly. I was SO angry, over tired and just in a foul mood. We eventually got in the air after being delayed four hours. To make it worse, you know what they served on the plane for a ‘snack’? The most DISGUSTING tuna rolls. Like seriously, it after 11pm at night, everyone was angry and then the whole cabin smelt of warm mayonnaise and fish. I nearly threw up. It was the worst in flight meal ever. One has to wonder what they were thinking when they planned that meal.
We landed at Tullamarine and ran to the taxi rank and there was about 100 people ahead of us. Mum was still at the hospital and dad hadn’t even been operated on yet. We had a fight with a taxi driver who only had room for one suitcase in his boot (!!!) and didn’t want a case on the seat. To which Bill shouted “THEN WHY ARE YOU PICKING UP PASSENGERS FROM THE AIRPORT?!” Seriously – Melbourne cab drivers are a disgrace and embarrassment to the city. Imagine if this was a visitors first impression of Melbourne? Exactly. They are useless and why I never used them when I lived there. The taxi attendants told him to get out of there and ended up getting us a cab quickly. By the time we got home it was 1am. Dad had just been taken away and mum was stuck there waiting. I couldn’t sleep so I went and hopped in mum and dads bed and waited for mum to get home. It wasn’t until after 3am that I heard her key in the door. We stayed up chatting until nearly 5am.
Saturday was a washout. Dad was ok – Mum was able to pick him up before lunchtime. He still had the texta mark on his throat when they thought they may have to do a tracheotomy. He was very sore and sorry for himself and we were all overtired and exhausted. We spent Saturday in our PJs looking after dad and packing our stuff. It was an eventful way to wind down our visit that is for sure. We only had Sunday left in Melbourne… wah!