Monday 24th March

It was a very late start today as I didn’t wake up until 10.00am! It’s all these early mornings – I’m just not built for them! The bed here is one of the most uncomfortable we’ve had, so I had a very restless night and obviously exhaustion took over…….Anyway, it gave us the opportunity to do lots of little jobs before we set out to “do” Canberra.

We went to the National Museum of Australia, a really modern looking building,

which devotes itself to telling stories about the country and its people, and it’s fascinating. As you all know, we both store large amounts of trivia in our brains, and now that we no longer have to work, there’s even more room for such stuff! The museum has sections on Aboriginal culture and history, environmental change during the past 20,000 years, Australian icons and taped interviews with ordinary Australians from all walks of life. There is a section telling the story of the Aboriginal children who were taken from their families to be brought up in a “civilised” way and the traumas that have stalked them. While we were in NZ, Kevin Rudd, the new Oz PM, apologised for this to the indigent people. Many of them have become very successful, as they were placed with families who saw them educated well, but they were not encouraged to investigate their pasts. In fact, many did not know where their roots were and if and when they found out, reacted violently against their adopted families and society as a whole. Others are active in trying to put right some of the wrongs that were perpetrated. There is a huge problem within some Aboriginal communities with drunkenness and child abuse, as well as marital violence. Current adverts on TV have abusers admitting to their behaviour publicly to encourage others to seek help too. It’s a massive problem and certainly won’t go away within our lifetimes. There is an ongoing situation with land rights too and that is also being discussed in Parliament. It’s such a huge problem and with so much land involved, it’ll be ongoing for years.

However, that aside, the successful side of Aboriginal culture is wonderful. Art and fabric design is very popular, there are some wonderful new designers in both clothing and household décor; and the older generation are being encouraged to put their memories of folk tales and customs on record (nothing was written down but handed on by word of mouth) so they won’t be lost completely. The general tone is for a much more integrated society. What amazed me most was the similarity to apartheid in South Africa – I had never thought of it like that before.

There’s a large section on the introduced pests that have decimated crops and native wildlife – rabbits, red foxes, starlings, carp and cattle ticks. I knew that rabbits were a real problem, having been introduced in 1859 but the lengths to which people have gone at times are mind-boggling. Factories were built to make the fencing to try to protect crops. One fence stretched from about Doubtful Bay in the south of WA to Port Hedland in the north. Another from Point Anne near Albany, south WA to Bluff Point, west WA and a third from Bluff Point to meet up with fence no. 1 due east – and still the little b*****s got through! By 2000, rabbits covered 9/10’s of the country except for a small section in the Northern Territories. Movement of cattle is strictly monitored to prevent the spread of cattle ticks which weaken the animals.

The cactus-like plant that I described the other day, is the prickly pear which kills off native vegetation and thus the habitat of some native creatures. Various methods have been tried to eradicate it including introducing another pest, the cactoblastic caterpillar.

I didn’t know that there used to be huge herds of buffalo in Australia, and there was an industry built round their skins and meat but indiscriminate hunting and disease have killed off nearly all.

There is a very moving video about one of the bushfires that occur almost annually when a fire engine was trapped and another team managed to rescue the crew. A replica of a dugout shows how the use of them has helped to save people trapped during bushfires.

Reading all this again, I’ve realised it all sounds a bit gloomy but it really wasn’t. There is just so much there – too much to describe and we didn’t get round it all but it was definitely worth the visit – AND it was free.

When we were thrown out of there at 5.00, we drove up to Black Mountain where the Telstra Tower is, to have a view over the city from a different angle. The tower is 195.2m high on top of the mountain which is just over 900m. The enclosed viewing platform is 58.5m from the mountain top, and the first open platform is 62m. It has fantastic views all round and visibility was very good. While we were there, Tom finally persuaded me to have my photo taken with a snake. Aren’t I brave!! We could see the museum where we’d just been and the zoo, where we’re going tomorrow. I overheard a guide who was showing some uni students around that there is a nuclear bunker built into the mountain. He also pointed out the scope of the bushfires that devastated Canberra in 2003. No-one has ever been prosecuted for them but there was no doubt that it was arson.

Returning from there, we drove round to Anzac Parade to take some photos but the sun went behind a cloud and it got too dark so we came back to the motel and had another quiet night in. So that was an inactive day compared to most but our batteries are recharged and we’ll see what tomorrow brings. Night, night!