Paintings, portaits views and dinosaurs.....
Canberra has turned on the most glorious weather for us. Even the temperature is remarkably mild compared to what we were expecting in a city known for its grey cold winter gloom. Not today!
John and I ventured out alone this morning while Ailsa, David and Penelope caught up with another friend, Diana. We'll meet up with them later for dinner tonight. They had already done the touristy sights in Canberra anyway, so John (who has never been before) and I, guided by the trusty GPS made our way into the city.
First stop was the National Portrait Gallery. We managed to find a park outside Questicon, and walk from there to the Gallery. I was really looking forward to this, having LOVED the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The building itself is large and starkly modern, like so many of the buildings in Canberra. They are quite imposing in their own way, and the gardens surrounding them are intrinsically Australian except for the vast expanses of well-kept lawns.
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| Sculptures outside Questicon |
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| John at the Portait Gallery |
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| Barb at the Portrait Gallery |
The paintings in the gallery were a mixed bag for me. I paricularly like the one of the musician Paul Kelly, and a fairly recent one of Princess Mary of Denmark, but there were also some hilariously awful ones. Each to their own in artistic tastes.
Likewise the National Gallery both intrigued, delighted and bemused me. We hadn't pre-purchased tickets to the Turner exhibit, and the queue of rowdy school kids headed in that direction put me off going anyway. We stuck instead to the regular exhibits. I saw "Blue Poles" by Jackson Pollock for real for the first time. I remember the hoo hah over the price paid for this particular piece many years ago, and I'm happy to report it's better than it looks in a book. On the other hand I do hope the public purse didn't fork out much to purchase what is essentially a blank white piece of canvas that looks remarkably similar to the wall colour on which it is hung. What is the point? Both John and I had the same thought: Emperor's new clothes.
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| Barb at the National Gallery |
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| Old Parliament House |
We walked back along Lake Burley Griffin. It looked its very best with the white fluffy nimbus clouds above reflected in its placid waters. We viewed from afar Parliament House and across the lake the Australian War Memorial beckoned. We drove over there and had a fairly high-speed tour of this grand old building, before heading up to Black Mountain where the Telecom tower sits like a beacon to get a birds-eye view of Canberra and surrounds.
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| Lake Burley Griffin |
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| Avenue of flags |
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View from the War Memorial
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| Barb at War Memorial |
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| The Telecom Tower |
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| View from Telecom Tower |
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| John having coffee on the Observation deck cafe |
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Red poppies on the Wall of Remembrance
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It was certainly a spectacular sight .... especially on a day of such weather clarity. We had a very light lunch there and then headed for the National Dinosaur Museum which we'd spotted on the way into town.
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| Barb at the Dinosaur Museum |
My son Garreth had a great fascination with dinosaurs as a young child and his daughter Bronte will no doubt be introduced to them because of his interest. We found a plush toy called Bronty (the Brontosaurus) in the gift shop .... it's coming home with us!
Late extra: We've arrived back at our hosts' home late in the evening, after a meal out with them in Canberra. More tomorrow!
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