Monday 31st March

We were both a bit jaded today! The weather was lovely when we woke but by the time we’d sorted ourselves out and got ready (11.30am) it was pouring! That didn’t help the general mood!! Nevertheless – ever onward with the big adventure, let nothing stand in the way….

As I said yesterday, the tram stop is right outside the motel, so Tom got the tickets and we rushed across the road in the pouring rain to catch it. $6.50 each to ride the trams all day, and, boy, are there trams in Melbourne! Imagine the underground, but shorter and overground and you’ve just about got the picture – they are everywhere, old ones,

new ones, short ones, long ones, bendy ones! You can’t get a decent view of the buildings because the tram wires are in the way, but it’s a great way to travel. The rain had stopped by the time we were halfway to town so we packed the waterproofs in the rucksack – and there they stayed for the rest of the day, sod’s law! If we hadn’t taken them, it would have poured all day.

The first thing we did was to go on the free tram which circles the city centre – like the free bus in Brisbane, it gives you a chance to see where you would like to visit without wearing out the shoe leather too early in the day! Then we had a coffee and Tom had a Danish – I was being good, before exploring.

We did walk quite a lot as well – there are a lot of streets that constitute the centre, in fact the whole city seems to be spread out over a vast area. We noticed yesterday that we were in the suburbs virtually from the time we reached Hwy32 at Montrose, about 20kms into the centre. Most of the housing is single storey, there are lots of green spaces, and all the streets are wide so I suppose if you compressed all that into our type of housing, with much of the residential areas towards the centre of the city as flats, the total area would be much less. There are over 3 million inhabitants in Melbourne – that’s a lot to spread out in single storey accommodation. The only high rise buildings are in the business district and some of them are pretty amazing.

Having decided on a couple of visits, first we went up the Eureka Tower, the highest residential building in the southern hemisphere with the highest viewing platform on floor 88. Unlike the Skytower in Auckland, this lift did not have a glass floor (thank goodness, as I’m sure we rose and descended even faster). The views were spectacular even though visibility was not as clear. You can go out onto the Edge – a glass platform with mesh sides – for an extra payment, but they were warning that it was very blustery and even Tom baulked at paying $12 for a couple of minutes on a glass floor (especially as you could only see in one direction from it). If you think I seem to be conquering my fear of heights, don’t be misled – if I’m inside a building with plenty of thick glass and walls between me and the outside and if I only walk a few paces then stop and look out while stationary, I’m fine. Walking whilst looking or looking down gets the old balance out of true and I feel quite queasy, but at least I have learned to cope and it means I haven’t missed out on some amazing views.

After descending from Eureka, we walked across the river Yarra on a very strangely shaped bridge, then caught the free tram again round to the Old Melbourne Gaol. We’d just missed one of the tours and it meant hanging around for the next, so we caught another tram and went down to the harbour where there are some strange pieces of art along the waterfront. The weather started to look a bit menacing again, so we nipped into a small café for another coffee and sticky. It’s the cheapest we’ve had since we arrived in Oz, 2 coffees and a huge square of carrot cake, which we shared, cost just $7.80 (about £3.70) – it’s usually $3.50 for each coffee. Having revived our flagging feet, we walked over the main railway lines (lots) into the station and back towards the centre. There are little (and not so little) arcades of shops all over the place, some old and ornate, some very modern.

We found a secondhand book shop with a good range of books and could have bought loads, but again, there’s the problem of getting them home, so we just looked. Lorna had e-mailed us a page from her bird book with photos of some of the birds we’d seen – the grey, pink and white birds are galahs, and I found a Birds of Australia book which showed the bright red and blue bird we saw in Canberra. I think it was an eclectus parrot, but the book also says it’s only found in the far north, so, unless it had escaped from some collection, it must have been a Rosella of some sort. It’s a pity I didn’t manage to get a photo.

Tom had seen a book about the Melbourne trams at Eureka and didn’t buy it then, and although he looked in a couple of other shops, we couldn’t find it. We did find a magazine shop, Magnation, with what they claimed was the largest collection of magazines in the city. They certainly had lots, but Tom found that the English ones they had were a couple of months out of date and twice the price of UK. They did not have any Australian x-stitching magazines, which I found rather strange, but they had a few quilting and patchwork ones, which I was able to resist. I couldn’t find any stitching shops in the city apart from Lincraft, but they have more in the way of wool and dressmaking fabrics and paper goods than x-stitch charts or books. I’m going on line later to see if I can dig up any. Thanks Mags and Lorna for your help with this – we didn’t get to the Brisbane ones, and haven’t reached the WA area yet. The shops I’ve found so far have been in most unlikely small towns where craft obviously flourishes when there’s not a lot else to do!

We got back here at about 6.00pm carrying our dinner for tonight, which you’ll be pleased to hear is a nice healthy salad and some chicken and beef – a nice change after our fish and chips of last night and Chinese the night before. I shall look forward to cooking properly when we get home – I never thought I’d be bothered, but I am missing home cooked meals. We’ve got the heating on as it’s definitely autumnal now and will enjoy another evening of TV before more adventuring tomorrow. Bye for now.

Sunday 30th March

Another travelling day but not so far to go from Morwell to Melbourne. It had rained during the night, but was sunny, dry and quite warm when we left the motel. The A1 becomes the M1 just before Morwell, but there’s not a lot of difference in the road conditions – it just shows as green on the map as opposed to red! It was quite busy and, like yesterday, there are lots more human habitations around. The air was also very clear – I think that was as a result of the rain we’d had last night – so we could see the hills clearly.

We decided as we had loads of time and couldn’t check into the Melbourne motel until 2.00pm, we’d detour up via the Dandenong mountains, just to the east of the city. They’ve built a new by-pass round Pakenham since the map book was printed, so instead of turning off there to start our detour, we ended up going on to Beaconsfield before finding the right road. In Emerald, we stopped for coffee and to get some information. Tom found a leaflet on the Puffing Billy train, which I had read about months ago in a travel supplement – it goes through Emerald! But it wasn’t due for some time, so we drove on to Menzies Creek, found a vantage point and were able to film and photograph it puffing through on its way to Emerald. What on earth would elf’n’safety have to say about this in UK? We then did a quick drive down the road to the station and saw TWO Puffing Billies there at the same time! We’ll probably go back on one of our days here and take a trip – it won’t be quite as long or arduous as the Trans Alpine in NZ was!! (or as expensive!)

We drove on through the forests to Belgrave and Sassafras (isn’t that a lovely name?) where we stopped and had a wander along with hundreds of others – it’s obviously the place to go on a Sunday afternoon. There are lots of nice little shops, although Tom was disappointed that the PC World was shut.Still, there were tea rooms to visit and forest walks to go on, as well as lots of cyclists (VERY fit people as the hills are steep). It’s very pretty round there and for the first time since leaving NZ, we saw tree ferns in the forests. There are some jolly big tall trees there too and the foresters have been having a chopping session by the looks of it, as there were loads of areas with only tree stumps and lots of big logs. We found the World’s Best Gift Shop there – or so the notice proclaimed, and it did have an extraordinary array of gifts, not too expensive either. But we didn’t buy anything – we keep thinking of the stuff we’ve already collected!

The next village on the road is Olinda – again a touristy place but pleasant, we may go back when we do the train trip. Mt Dandenong has the Skyline Lookout so we drove up through the forest and joined the hundreds of others enjoying the bracing air at the top! (It was blooming freezing!) The views are magnificent, real WOW factor, looking out over Melbourne, the central district of which looks like a series of spikes sticking up from a sea of housing. The English Garden was a disappointment, as was the secret Garden, which didn’t contain much except for a seat, a statue and a gazebo – all designed as suitable backgrounds for wedding photos, but not much else. I sat in the Giant’s Chair – luckily he didn’t come along and demand it back while I was there, and met Mr Percy Possum – but he was asleep by his front door, so I didn’t disturb him!
Then it was a very winding descent to Montrose where we joined Highway 32 into Melbourne. It was very busy but steady moving and we found our way to our new Motel, the Park Squire Motor Inn with no difficulty and signed in. It’s a bit further from the city centre than we thought, but the trams run right in front of it straight into the centre. We’ve just enjoyed a very nice fish and chip supper and are going to watch CSI in a few minutes so I’ll leave you for now. Byee!
PS I forgot to say yesterday that we were a bit flummoxed when we’d been in Victoria for some distance, and we came across a sign “Fruit Fly Exclusion Zone” worded something to the effect ‘if you have any fruit bought in a fruit fly zone, dispose of it in this bin’. We knew that SA has strict controls for the containment of fruit fly, but hadn’t realised that Victoria did too. So there we were, sitting in the car gobbling our grapes and bananas just in case!! Of course, nobody stopped us after that, and we’d probably have been OK, but weren’t prepared to take the risk or you could all have been bailing us out!

Saturday 29th March

Happy Birthday, Amy!!

The weather has really changed now and it’s so cold. We had a fan heater on in the motel room last night, almost all night and tonight we again have had to put heat on, and Tom’s even turned the electric blanket on! It has been a bright sunny day, but the autumn has begun earlier than normal, so we’re told, although we notice Perth still has temperatures of 30 deg and over. By the time we get there, that’ll probably have changed too!!

We didn’t travel as far today, only to Morwell which is only just over 200kms from Orbost. We had a quick look round Orbost this morning – there’s a patchwork and quilting shop I saw last night on our walk. It’s lovely – one of those deceptively small shops from the outside, then like an Aladdin’s cave once you get in. The lady who owns it looks on it as just an extended workroom. She says that people pop in and out at odd times to do a class or just to do a little bit, but she’s there all the time and gets on with whatever she has on hand. Her quilts were fantastic and I could have spent a lot longer but Tom was patiently waiting outside – in the sunshine at least – so I didn’t linger.

We then drove on along the Princes Highway, through Lakes Entrance – a very pretty town but very commercialised. The waterways there stretch for miles but only a short way inland so you have long narrow inlets stretching up and down the coast. It all fills and empties with the tides, through a single inlet, and the water at that point can get quite violent. This stretch of coast is also quite hilly so it makes for interesting driving. We stopped just after the town, on a hillside looking back over it. There was a guide to the Gippsland (the name of this area) Lakes, and the first long channel is named the Hopetoun Channel. The quality of the air there is so clear as there is no pollution, that it almost hurt your eyes to look out to the horizon

Compared to yesterday’s greener fields, it was again very dry in this area but there’s lots more “civilisation”, by which I mean more houses, farms, traffic – not the long stretches where miles go by without seeing another car or house. The trees are taller and closer together in the woodland, which is also more prolific. The next town was Bairnsdale, where the Great Alpine Road meets the Princes Highway, so the traffic was a little heavier; then Stratford on the River Avon, where they hold a Shakespeare week in April!

At Sale, I said it was time for a loo stop but we couldn’t see any public toilets then spied a café – it was closed! Saturday, and closed? You’d think it would have been the busiest day. Anyway, on we went and found a truckers roadhouse – the Billabong – you know I said about the long drop dunny last Sunday? – well, this was almost as bad; of the two, I think I preferred the dunny!! But the coffee was good and it was served out of new polystyrene mugs – I think I’d have been a bit suspicious of anything that required washing! I don't think I've ever been in a more cluttered cafe.

After that, it was only a few kms to Morwell and we arrived at our motel, the Parkside, just before 3.00pm. The street beside it is called Hopetoun . (We’ve found that the Earl of Hopetoun was the first Governor General of Australia – was he a pupil at Wellington College?) As we arrived, so it started to rain and has done so on and off since. We did venture out for a walk, but there’s not a lot to see so it was just exercise. There’s a Chinese restaurant next door so that was dinner venue. The food was good and plenty of it, but not the best we’ve had. When it’s so cold, you need something hot to eat, and with no cooking allowed in the motel rooms, it’s rather frustrating.

Our motel room is very nice here and we have internet access. They’ve only just had broadband connected this week and we are the first to use it, so he’s let us have access free – nice man! There’s not a lot to say about today really as we haven’t done much. We did manage to speak to Amy this evening (morning in UK) and now Tom is going to sort out the pics and post this blog while I snuggle down in the warm bed and read my charity shop book. Night, all.

Friday 28th March

I thought Tom was going to wet himself tonight. We were watching TV in the hotel where we were having dinner and they were showing the latest keep fit exercises for the elderly – fencing. Imagine - proper fencing with foils and face guards with the opponents in wheelchairs or with zimmer frames! It was hysterical, but so difficult to describe. Just take it from us that it was one of the funniest things we’ve ever seen.

Anyway, back to the timeline of today’s activities - we set off by 10.00 from our freezing little cabin and stopped off by Anzac Parade to photograph the war memorials lining the street. There are eight of them at present with four spare sites, one of which is to be the Peacekeepers memorial. The current eight are Australian Army, Navy, Air Force, Desert Mounted Crops, Vietnam Forces, Korean War, Rats of Tobruk and the Nurses. Each is a great memorial but the two we both agreed touched us the most were the Vietnam one and the Rats of Tobruk.

Neither of us knew that Australia sent so many troops to Vietnam, 50,000. This is the largest memorial of them all. Great slabs of concrete set at odd angles, the insides of which are etched, one with a relief photo of some of the men awaiting extraction from Phuoc Tuy Province after an offensive, one with random comments from men’s letters home and official documents, the third left blank. There is a long curved seat in the centre where you can sit and contemplate and over the centre is a suspended circle of stones, which contain all the names of the soldiers who didn’t come back from the war. The whole is set above flowing water and surrounding the main structure are plain concrete blocks with the names of some of those bodies brought home and some who were never found. Real tear jerking stuff.

The Rats of Tobruk memorial is much simpler but no less moving. The centre consists of large blocks of sandstone, the central one of which came from the original memorial built at Tobruk, using stone from the Post Office. The surrounding low walls portray the perimeter defences and show the positions at which the enemy attacked. Very simple but effective.

The two bronzes of “diggers” on the Army memorial are worth a mention. They are huge – about 20’ tall and the detail is superb.

After that moving start to the day, it was a bit quiet in the car for the first few miles but that soon changed! The road south, the Monaro Highway was fairly busy but not too many trucks. It passes through the Snowy Mountains, before which, the scenery was the usual dry brown, with long straight roads. We stopped off in Cooma, capital of the snowy Mts, for coffee and I can safely say this was the rip-off of the holiday. We paid more than we’d pay for our normal evening meal for coffee and a sticky – twice as much as we normally expect. It wasn’t even a particularly wonderful café – but hey ho! that’s life! We handed in the books we’d read at the local charity shop and chose some more, and we picked up a couple of warm tops, and a pair of trousers for me to combat this really cold spell we’re “enjoying” at the moment! Back on the road, we were followed by a couple of trucks who terrorised us for a good few kms. Every time we came to a hill we pulled away, then when the road went downhill, the b*****s caught up with us again – goodness knows what speeds they got up to on those stretches! Thank heavens we lost them once we reached Bombala. We’d decided not to go the east coast route but to carry on south to Cann River then go along the south coast. Cann River was one of the places we’d thought we might stop but once we got there and saw the place, we moved on! We’re at Orbost for the night in a very nice motel with internet access. We walked to the local hotel for dinner where we had the hysterical fencing episode, after which we walked round the town/village (small town or large village, can’t decide which).

This is a much greener area than around Canberra with lots of beef and sheep farms. On the way, we passed through forests of pine instead of eucalypt and the land is much more rolling and hilly with real mountains in the distance. Tom couldn’t complain that there were long stretches of straight road on the journey – in fact, he was wishing for some straights by the time we got here! Anyway, tomorrow we’ll be well on the way to Melbourne – only one other night stop before we get there. So goodnight for the present.

Thursday 27th March

It was so cold last night – the temperature in Canberra got down to 4 deg – this is not what we came here for!! We both had difficulty in sleeping as the quilt kept slipping down the bed. Tom even put the heating on for a short while at 5.30am! Today has been sunny and really warm in the sunshine but cool in the shade and once the sun had set, it was cold again. The weather forecast is for 3 deg tonight!! Melbourne has had daytime temps of only 17 deg – we hope it’s going to warm up a bit before we get there.

Well, as I said yesterday, we had a parliamentary day planned for today and that’s just what we did. We went to Parliament House first and enjoyed a great visit. It’s enormous – (to give you an idea, the flagpole above the building is 89 metres tall, and the flag the size of the side of a double decker bus) and up to 8,000 people work there at any one time. We had a guided tour from a young lady called Casey, who was an excellent speaker and answered questions openly and with ease. Anything she was not sure of, she admitted and said to ask for the information at the entrance desk – refreshing truthfulness from someone in the political field! At the end of the tour, she admitted to having only been working there for 1 month! She’s a student reading politics and languages in a five year course. Her part time guiding job helps pay for her tuition and accommodation.

The design for the building was opened to international competition and a unanimous decision granted the task to an American architect, Romaldo Giurgola. Part of the original Burley Griffin overview for Canberra was for any public place to be “at one” with the environment. The most logical place to build it was on Capital Hill, but to build on top of the hill would make it “loom” over the rest of the city and be out of keeping with the democratic vision of Australians. So they dug out the hill, built the House, then put much of the soil back on the roof, so that the people could stand above their elected Parliament!

Giurgola designed the House on a “timeline” from the past to the future. The front approach has an Aboriginal mosaic centred in the courtyard surrounded by water. The gravel is red, reflecting the red gravel on Anzac Parade which is also the colour of the interior land in Oz. This is the past. The view from the front looks back at the old parliament building, up Anzac Parade to the War Memorial and Mount Ainslie. This is the reverse view of the one Tom took on Sunday from the viewpoint on Mount Ainslie, looking down on the city. The wings of the House are like arms and the veranda over the front doors symbolises shade, shelter and welcome to visitors. Inside the foyer, grey-blue marble columns and neutral coloured marble floors give a sense of coolness – it represents the grey-blue forests of the gum trees, with the floor shading as the flora below the canopy. The marbles all come from Europe to symbolise the era of immigration and colonisation. Then the Great Hall, in complete contrast, lined and floored with Australian woods and dominated by an enormous tapestry (second biggest in the world, after Coventry) remind visitors of the natural resources of the country. This suggests the period of settlement in Australia.

The House of Representatives and the Senate are designed in a flat topped oval shape – the House of Representatives decorated in the pale grey blue-green of the eucalyptus and the Senate in the dull red of the interior, both furnished with Australian woods, both light and airy. These are all the present.

The rear of the building is where the future is decided – the Prime Minister’s office, the Cabinet rooms and all the Committee rooms where legislation is debated and formed.

It is a most impressive building - light, airy, welcoming and with a feel of a much older building – it was opened in 1988. There are 17 courtyards within the outer walls so everywhere you walk from one room to another, you look out onto green areas with water features (all of which are switched off at present because of the water restrictions). There are 2,700 clocks around – when members are called to Division, bells ring and lights flash on the clocks, and they have 4 minutes to get to their chamber. This is the same system that we use in our Parliament. Why 4 minutes? The story goes that when they were deciding how long to give members to get to the chambers, they took the oldest and slowest MP to the farthest extreme of the building and then told him to get to the chamber – it took him three and a half minutes, so they allowed for an extra half minute! Truth or fiction? Who knows!

Again, like in the War Memorial, there were several groups of schoolchildren and the army, navy and airforce cadets on educational trips. One party of children was being taught how parliament works by taking part in a mock parliament. In both the Houses, as well as open public galleries and the Press gallery, there are glass fronted and soundproofed galleries specifically constructed so that school groups can watch and be taught about the working of Parliament, without disrupting it. These enclosed galleries are also used for families with young children.

There is a coffee shop with very reasonably priced fare and a shop, again not exorbitantly priced. Comparing it to the massive security that now surrounds our Parliament, Prime Minister and MP’s, it was like a different world. Of course, they do not have the security problems we have with the terrorist threat, but it just felt so casual. We had our bags x-rayed and walked through a scanner on the way in, but never saw an armed security officer or policeman all the time we were there, although there are lots of cameras.

We left the car in the underground car park and walked the 400m or so to the Old Parliament House. This was used until 1988 when the new House was opened – how they managed to fit everyone into the small rooms and Parliament chambers is mind boggling. We had a guided tour again, but, although our guide, who is a retired headmaster, was OK, we’d been spoilt by the impressive Casey. He had some interesting tales to tell about some of the past PM’s and other personalities. Did you know that there was one PM who only led the nation for 7 days? And that the Duke of Windsor refused to return to Australia to open the old Parliament House in 1927, because he’d been once and didn’t like it? It was built in the days when it was firmly British,with the design much more formal. The entrance hall here is much smaller than the new building, and is basically a classical square room, with a statue of the King (George V, Rex Imperator)overlooking all who entered. and the architect incorporated many “secret” references to Britain. Two that were pointed out were the metalwork of the balustrades, (stylised representations of the Union Flag), and the air vents, which were more obviously based on the flag The building was only meant to last for 50 years or so until a new House could be built, so it had lots of faults when Parliament eventually moved out 61 yrs later. More has been spent on the upkeep now that it is a Heritage building than when it was in use. It was an interesting experience to compare the two buildings but rather unfair in a way.

Having walked our feet off again, we came back to the cabin. I went and did the laundry, cooked dinner (well, baked potatoes) and here we are, chilled again as the temperature has dropped, ready to move on tomorrow. We haven’t actually decided where we’ll end up as there are several choices open to us. At this time of year, accommodation shouldn’t be a problem where we’re going – are these going to be famous last words? Bye for now.

Wednesday 26th March

Today we moved from Crestwood Gardens Motel to the Canberra Motor Village but between times, we visited the Australian War Memorial. This is a vast building, which doesn’t just house all the names of those killed in Australia’s conflicts, but a fascinating history of all those conflicts.

Our first visit was to the Lawrence of Arabia exhibit where there was a talk by one of the curators. Much of the exhibit has been loaned from the Imperial War Museum but some comes from letters, pictures and books that are held at the Australian War Museum. The curator was a young lady whose knowledge was quite impressive although her oration was not so hot! The importance of this exhibit is the relationship between Lawrence and the Arabs and the Australian Light Infantry who fought together against the Turks in the middle east. Fascinating stuff, and some amazing original manuscripts, letters and photographs, as well as the actual arab clothing used by Lawrence in the desert. Among other items, it holds a complete Lancaster aircraft, G for George, which flew bombing missions during WWII, a Spitfire, a Mosquito, a Sea Fury, a German Me109 and a Mig fighter. The main bridge of the HMAS Brisbane was removed when she was decommissioned, and has been re-erected inside, with a sound and light show of two of the missions she took part in. There is a Japanese midget submarine (midget being a relative term as it’s 24m long) made from salvaged parts of 2 of the 3 midget subs that attacked Sydney Harbour in 1942. A life size Iroquois helicopter from the Vietnam war is the centre of a realistic sound and light re-enactment of a mission to re-supply troops on the ground. One of the star exhibits is a long range desert land-rover used by the Australian SAS, called a 150 from the additional AU$150 per day mission allowance paid to them. This particular one ran over a land-mine, and although the crew escaped, it suffered major damage, and was returned to Australia, and presented to the memorial. There are numerous other sound and light shows, all done using original radio transmissions and/or films, with some digital augmentation, of WWII bombing missions; the sub attack on Sydney; the sinking of the German ship Emden by HMAS Sydney (they have the original ship's bell from the Emden, which gives some idea of the damage it received), a bombing attack on Berlin and a battle with North Vietnamese troops in a rubber plantation.

There is so much there, we spent 6 hours and still didn’t see everything. It’s one of the most moving and saddening places I have ever been. It was heartening to see that there is a section devoted to education about how Australians have fought for their country and school groups use this facility daily. There were several groups of various ages there today as well as groups of Australian naval and airforce cadets. We arrived at just after 10.00am and the main car park was already full, and it’s BIG.

Anyone wishing to see more can access the website http://www.awm.com.au/. I could fill pages with what we saw and experienced but it’s not something I can adequately describe. The photographs along the corridors are enough to move you to tears never mind the exhibits.

Tom was delighted to be able to find 2 errors in the displays – both to do with rank braids on uniforms of 2 RAAF officers. He made a note in the “Comments Book” before we left, having had a word with the research staff.

We signed in here at 5.30 and have a very roomy cabin with full cooking facilities. Tom’s managed to post the blog for the last few days, as you will have seen if you’ve been keeping track of us so I’m keeping up my side of the writing. I even have the choice of 4 spare beds (although they are bunks) in a spare room if sleeping next to the “king of snoring” becomes too much. I’ve been able to bake potatoes for the first time on ages to go with our meat and salad and we’re now watching “The Rock” on TV. Tomorrow, we’re off to Parliament so watch this space. Goodnight.

Tuesday 25th March

When I say that it was raining this morning, I actually mean that it was a deluge – no kidding, it had rained on and off really heavily all night, and looked as if it was here to stay all day. We waited to see if it would lighten up, but no joy so off we went anyway to the zoo. Tom had arranged for us to have an encounter with a cheetah – yes, a real cheetah and actually in the enclosure with it. So no amount of rain was going to put me off! Whether it was because of the weather or not, the National Zoo & Aquarium is nowhere near as well cared for as Australia Zoo, nor Auckland and certainly the aquarium is not a patch on Sydney Aquarium. There didn’t seem to be many staff, or they weren’t around; there was a definite whiff in the air and it was very untidy. Having said that, the animals seemed to have large enclosures and certainly looked well.

We started off in the aquarium, (partly to keep dry for as long as possible) which is also the reptile house but there aren’t many snakes and no poisonous ones. There were 2 kinds of skinks, which I didn’t like – they move too much like snakes but are scaly like lizards, weird creatures. There was a BIG groper in one of the tanks (no it wasn’t Tom), grouper, I suppose we’d call it. He was about 5’ long and grey and ugly (I know – sounds more like Tom than ever!) – he’s one of the biggest types of fish in the world.

We had a good look round before our date with the big cats and just happened to be watching the lions when one of the males started to stalk a bird that had flown into their area. Seeing this great cat chasing a prey in real life was amazing and Tom got it on video! (The photo is a grab frame from the video) The poor snow leopards looked a bit bedraggled, but the sun bears were playing around as if it wasn’t pouring and one of the tigers was on the prowl.

When it came time to go in with the cheetahs, we had to have some instruction then just followed one keeper, Chris, into the enclosure with the other one, Brendan behind. There were three cheetahs, two females and a male – Shasa, Tanzi and Reba, all lying in a low wooden shelter. We were introduced then I got down to meet Tanzi. Because I was wearing the hood up on my jacket, she wasn’t happy and growled at me – good start! Once I’d removed it and she could see my face, she backed down but Chris took me around the back of her to meet Reba. He was just like a big domestic cat, pushing into my hand as I stroked him, then licking my closed fist. He then decided to go for a walk, so I got to stroke Shasa instead. Tanzi had settled down but we made no move to go back to her although she was just inches away. Tom filmed all this, then Brendan took the camera and Tom came into the shelter too and stroked Shasa. She obviously liked the smell of his hand because she licked it for ages. Chris said he didn’t know if that was a good sign or not – I think he was joking! We had 15 minutes with them and it was just wonderful – definitely a once-in-a-lifetime moment. They all came from South Africa at the same time about 4 years ago but are not related. There are plans to try to mate one or both of the females with the male King Cheetah that the zoo also has – we saw them too, all wet and forlorn looking. They are bigger than the ordinary cats. It’s a recessive gene that also gives them their different markings. The King cheetahs have a defined stripe along their backs as well as the blotch markings.

I have to say I didn’t notice the rain while I was in the cheetah enclosure – I wonder why?! When we got back to the shop, they had certificates for us to say that we had survived the encounter, and a couple of the small shopping bags that were on display. We did consider carrying on around Canberra, but it was coming down harder than ever as we left, so we came home to the motel to try to dry out. At least the heating works in the room so we’re setting up our own sauna at the moment!

As there isn’t net access here, you won’t get to read this yet, but we move to another motel in Canberra tomorrow which has it. We decided to spend another couple of days here so we can visit some of the government buildings, which are open to the public so we have re-jigged our route from here to Melbourne. I can hardly believe we have only just over a month left – still, that’s plenty of time to fit loads more in!!

Now I shall finish my bit and leave Tom to sort out his photos. Bye for now.
Later We went to the Pancake Parlour in the city centre for dinner and had a lovely meal – everything is served with pancakes of different kinds, a bit like pasta but not, if that makes sense!! They advertised themselves as having free wireless internet. Unfortunately, it’s unserviceable at the moment so Tom couldn’t post the blog as he’d hoped. He’s just “encouraged” me to add a bit more about the zoo so it’s all his fault if it’s gone on a bit. The rain has finally stopped and the skies are clearing so we hope tomorrow will be less of a washout. Speak to you all soon. Byee!!