On Saturday afternoon (after a morning spent washing clothes) we went to the Canberra Museum and Gallery. I was hoping for some information on the decision to make Canberra the capital and on the building up of the capital. Not here sunshine. This was more a gallery than a museum, and the factual stuff that was there seemed mostly to be apologising for Canberra being rubbish. Shame.
That night, whilst watching TV, we heard an almighty roar in the skies above us. It was quite frightening. It happened again, and I removed a mozzie screen from the window so we could look out. I saw flames in the sky in the distance. Then a bloody jet flew over with flames coming out the back of it. It was really low - I could almost see the pilot! I figured it had its afterburners on, since I remembered the term from an old arcade game, and that seemed to fit. The noise was amazing!
We checked the ABC - no news. Later on the ABC reported that Canberra residents had been phoning the police and the ABC, afraid of a terrorist attack. Turns out the jets were getting rid of fuel in order to land, having been involved in a celebration of the centenary of the High Courts(!) The organisers had neglected to warn the police they'd be flying flaming jets over the nation's capital. Amazing that in the current climate they thought nothing of doing this! Aussies were hiding under their tables in fear, we read the next day!
This was a particularly bad weekend to give Aussies a scare, as it's the anniversary of the Bali bombs, and there's been a lot about that in the press here. There's also been lots about the World Cup. You can't escape from stuff on the World Cup. Now, I may not know a lot about sport, but I do know that the World Cup was last year, and the next one will be in three years. Silly Aussies.
War Memorial
On Sunday morning, we got up early and had pancakes. (Told you we were treating ourselves!) We then walked (for miles!) to The Australian War Memorial, and proceeded to walk up Mount Ainslie, which sits behind it. It wasn't too strenuous, and the views from the top were great. Canberra's a very pretty planned city - it's just a shame everything's so spread out. It must cover a similar area to Central London, but with a tiny proportion of London's attractions. (It has no celebrity museum in a box for a start. I think every capital city needs one of those.)
Back down the mountain (hill) and we went into the War Memorial. It's very big, and houses a museum, with galleries on different wars and conflicts the ANZACS have fought in. We were there to look at a collection of colour photos from WWI, but arrived in time for a free 90 minute tour, so went on that. It was really interesting, and the museum was really good. The good thing about Canberra being such an odd place is that it has to work hard to convince people to come here. This means that a lot of the museums are very good. And free!
(Stephen v Messy Louts) v (Eisenhower v Rommel)
I was particularly interested in the WWII gallery in the museum, as I'm reading Stephen E Ambrose's book on D-Day at the moment. This tells the story of the beach landings, mainly from the Americans' perspective. (As with Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan, complaints that this makes it look like the Yanks won the war for us are silly, since it's just their side of the story.)
It's a really interesting book, and has had me rapt. It makes me think that perhaps my troubles aren't as bad as they seem, and that perhaps I shouldn't get so annoyed with travellers who don't wash up their dishes and leave the communal kitchens in a mess. I still will though.
It's hard to relate to what the soldiers had to go through in the Normandy invasion. Bloody entertaining and exciting though.