Aussie Roadtrip: Canberra

The Snowy Mountains eventually gave way to the ACT, and before meeting up with Kat's aunty Joan, we paid a visit to Mr Turnbull and co at Parliament House. Unfortunately, Mr Turnbull was occupied (in Indonesia, sweating it out with President Widodo in the local markets), so instead of chatting with him, we went on a free tour. Hosted by a crazy and talkative Danish-Australian, Michael, who oozed passion for the building and its workers we whizzed through parliament house. We saw the events hall which recently hosted a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian and New Zealand table tennis tournament and houses the second largest tapestry in the world, and through the House of Representatives and the Senate and waving in the general direction of the Magna Carta.

Let this be a lesson to never wear branded t-shirts

Michael mid-story in the House of Reps

The House of Representatives

The Senate (the school kids on the other side answered one of Michael's questions about how many seats were needed for the balance of power!)

All along, Michael made witty jokes, incorporated baby's screams and exclamations into his stories and shared his love of our political institutions.  It was a shame that we couldn't have come through Canberra on any day other than Friday, because it would have been great to sit in on Question Time, but that will have to wait for next time. 

We had a lovely afternoon, evening and morning with our generous host Joan, who fed us till we were fit to bursting, shared her recent travel stories and told us of plans for the upcoming McDermot Christmas party.

During our whirlwind Canberra tour we also made a quick pit-stop up Black Mountain for a peek of Canberra from greater heights!

View from Black Mountain

Lovely to see Australian flowers :)

A footnote about our stop at the Big Merino in Goulburn, post-Canberra stay.  Fun facts about Australia's wool industry and the opportunity to look out of the big guy's eyes!

En route, we stopped at the Big Merino, Goulburn

Aussie Roadtrip: And then the Rain Came

It was lovely waking up with a bit of sunshine and the neighbouring kangaroos nibbling outside our window. It was very peaceful being the only humans staying amongst the chalets at the top of a hill in Jindabyne. And then the rain came!

Good day!

Our Jindabyne home for 2 nights

Lake Jindabyne in sunshine

Lake Jindabyne pre-storm

Jindabyne bush

Cloud collection 

Lake Jindabyne from the top of our hill

Neighbours 

Stormy backyard 

The reason they built a series of giant hydro-electric power stations through the Snowy Mountain region is because there is a lot of water.  There’s a lot of water because, well there’s a lot of rain (snow too, I imagine).  Unfortunately, we had to make an on-the-morning decision to scrap our plan to climb to the summit of Mt Kosciusko (which is apparently quite simple!).

Instead, we went the other way, along the road to Cooma, the home of the Snowy Hydro Scheme Discovery Centre.  It was a great way to learn more about what many describe as the greatest public infrastructure project undertaken in Australia.  We quite enjoyed it, although parts of it could be updated and/or fixed.  It was great to learn about not only how electricity is bought and sold throughout the east coast, but more about the scheme and the people who came to the region to help bring it to life.  I thought it kind of comical that they started the process with picks and shovels, but if that’s what you’ve got, then that’s what you’ve got!  Tens of thousands of people worked in this region to make these dams, it’s really pretty amazing. Many of the engineers, electricians, surveyors and other workers came from Germany, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Norway, Greece and other parts of the world.

What I would still like to know more about is why hydro power is still more expensive than coal, because as a result, hydro isn’t used to generate the bulk of electricity.  Still, visiting has meant that I have more questions to find the answers to, and I suppose that must be a good thing.

Our planned visit to the well reviewed NSW Correctional Services Museum was interrupted by a hiccup with the car, that fixed itself with no intervention from us but a lazy wait and try it again in 2 hours approach.  With the right mindset, you can fix anything!

Today Kat woke up and watched some boxing, kangaroo style- the only kind she enjoys! After some yoga and breakfast we got back on the road to head to the capital. 

It went on for quite awhile

Look at the far kanga propped up on his tail