Pat and I have been touring Canberra all day today. Canberra is an interesting city. It was "created" in 1908 to be the new Capital for Australia and is located in an autonomous zone (Australia Capital Territory) in a manner very similar to Washington, DC. The plans that were adopted for the city were created by a pair of architects from Chicago, and construction of the city actually began in 1913. It is laid out as a series of circular segments with streets running radially out of the circles, much like the central parts of Washington, DC. Without the Garmin...I don't know how we'd be able to get around.
The first stop today was the Australian-American Memorial, erected in 1954 to commemorate the assistance the US gave to Australia during WWII. The tower is 258 feet tall and is made of aluminum, sandblasted to have the appearance of being made of stone.
Here you can read the inscription at the base of the monument:
Our next stop was the Australian War Memorial, which houses an extensive collection of documents, displays, equipment, and the like from conflicts that Australia has been involved from the Crimean War through Iraq and Afghanistan. Australia has had a close military cooperation with the US since WWII and has fought alongside US troops in the Pacific, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. I thought it interesting that the War Memorial was dedicated just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941:
The building itself was massive, with many exhibits devoted to many topics. This is the front of the main portion of the building:
Looking in the opposite from the Museum, you can see the Parliament Building in the distance:
After touring the Museum, we headed over toward the Capital district and took this picture of the Parliament Building. Really striking!
After dinner, we drove up Black Mountain to the Telstra Tower, a huge communication tower that overlooks Canberra. The tower was built in 1980 and houses AM, FM, microwave, and cellular antennae. The tower is 640 feet tall with two observation decks and a restaurant near the top. This is a shot of the tower itself:
There is probably 200 feet of the tower that's not shown on the top. From the observation platforms, there was quite a view of the surrounding area. Here are a couple pics of Canberra from the tower:
That's downtown Canberra in the distance. This next pic was looking west into the sunset:
Pat's Paragraph.... Yesterday was 'Race Day' here, the running of the Melbourne Cup, or "for the Cup". Everything that can shut down does shut down, with signs in the windows, "Gone Racing, see you later" which probably means the Next day because they party hardy here. The news did an entire show on the race and parties, with interviews with everyone from the owners, trainers, all the way down to the dish washers at the catered affairs. No One talked about the horse who did all the work. The outfits that people wore were from the most elegant to the absurd. They talked to some young women that worked on their outfits all year, from top to bottom, with custom designs, that cost them $1800.00. One group of young men flew to Thailand and had custom clothing made for themselves, which were pants in a pinky orange color with huge black polka-dots on them, the racing colors of their horse. It was quite the 'Do'.
Some new terms to learn: brekky; bikey; overtaking; cloking; cutlery; give way; lift; chips and flirtations. And in order they mean, breakfast, motorcyclists, passing, coat room, silverware; yield, elevator, french fries and women's hats.
We're here in Canberra today, then tomorrow back up to Sydney for the night. We'll be leaving Sydney on Friday morning for Ayers Rock...
