Capital P

So we decided that after 8 hours of driving yesterday we would walk today. So we headed off from ANU to the lake and across the bridge to the Parliamentary precinct. It was too early to visit the National Library, so we went and checked out the main axis of Burley Griffins dream.

By then it was getting on for nine so we headed up to the Old Parliament House. The attendants werearranging  so floral tributes to Gough as we wandered in. The building is now a museum for democracy and it was fun roving around. It was so small!

Marjan enjoyed being speaker.

We had morning tea inside with a nice view of one of the old courtyards. Time to move on to the new house on the hill.

There was a bit of security about but nothing overbearing and everyone making fun of my Mr Grumpy T-shirt. We got in for a bit of a second reading debate, but not a lot of actual parliamentarians. Still nice to see democracy in action.

Certainly bigger and more spacious than the old. But the highlight was the roof.

Back down the hill we went via one of the old parliamentary gardens. The rose garden outside was a bit of a disappointment, unlike most of the rest which was living up to our hopes.

We decided we needed lunch, so the National Portrait gallery cafeteria was called for, with an outside table and a nice view. Reinforced we wandered the gallery. Some nice stuff. I was taken by the liveliness of Ms Montez, the cheekiness of the Barry Humphrey's self portrait and the lovely photo of Margaret Whitlam at dusk. 

Next stop was the High Court. It is an odd building with each of the three courts apparently suspended in mid air. Nice comfy couches.

Then the National Gallery. It is building quite a collection. We concentrated on the Australian section and quite enjoyed that. Plenty to like...Bracks for me. We did not see everything, just not enough time, but we did enjoy a coffee at tree top level. Canberra has so may nice cofee places in these national monuments.

Back on the road via the sculpture garden and over the bridge to the Carillion.

We dodged around Canberrians as they jogged, cycled and generally enjoyed the lake. We strolled back home and were absolutely spent. We had been out for over 10 hours walked at least 8km between buildings and spent time wandering each. A full day! We decide that dinner was a bit hard so we stayed on campus and had a caf type lunch.