Canberra

Well first of all, Happy belated Birthday to the Queen!!! I had Monday off because it was her birthday. Yes people I survived Yum Cha! It was pretty good actually. I had deep fried beef, calamari, duck, mango  pancakes, lemon cakes, spring rolls, vegetable and prawn dim sum, and many other things that I dont remember. Basically you sit down and the trolleys are rolled over to the table and you just start loading plated on the table. It was a wee bit pricey ($35) but it was an experience. 

I left on Saturday morning on the train bound for Canberra located in the Australian Capital Territory. Pretty much the same as Washington in the District of Colombia from what I can tell. Just a note that I have never been to DC so I cant really compare anything.  Apparently there was some disagreement between Sydney and Melbourne for the capital so they compromised in the middle (sort of). The train trip was about 4 hours long and this time I actually enjoyed it. There was no one sitting next to me and it was light out so I could watch the beautiful scenery go by. It turns out that NSW has some pretty nice hills like Victoria does. I wouldn’t have known that otherwise. The trip was uneventful, thank goodness. I was anxious we might get a medical emergency, or a broken down freight car, or even a car accident like last time but nothing!

While I was on the train I was silently applauding myself for packing for the trip in nothing but the cloud not even an additional purse. You can pretty much bring as much luggage as you want on the train but I knew I would be carrying whatever I brought around all day long so I didn’t pack much. This was a first for me and one of the main reasons I could never be a backpacker (I will just pretend I would be brave enough to do that). Anyway, well I was in the middle of singing my praises I realized that I had not brought any identification. Okay people the single most important thing you can bring as a traveler is your passport!!! What an idiotic mistake! You need it to confirm your hotel room, identify yourself for the train ticket, and even get into some government buildings! Idiot!!! I hoped for the best on that one and it turned out okay luckily! That could have been really bad. What a rookie mistake!

Once I arrived in Canberra I knew that transportation was going to be tricky. If I opted for a cab it was $25 and the tourist bus was $30 for the day. Well come to find out the tourist bus didn’t even service the station so that option was out. I saw some fellow passengers huddled at the bus stop so I went over with them. I paid $4.80 and got on the bus which took me to the center of town. On the way there I glimpsed the War Memorial which was exciting.

When I got to the town center I knew I needed an ACTION card which is their public transport card. I went to the convenience store on the corner and purchased one. This wasn’t without hassle as each state has a limit to how much you can be charged for transport in one day but I didn’t know what the limit was in ACT so I asked. The clerk didn’t know either so I ended up with $20 on the card and I had to pay $5 for the card. That also varies because in NSW, Opal cards are free but I know the Myki cards in Victoria were $6 so it just depends. Anyway, I had the card and was ready to roll.

I wanted to see the Mint for sure and I knew it was the thing that was located furthest away from my “hotel” so I went for that first. I basically hopped on the bus and hoped for the best…bad idea. The buses were clean and empty but the stops were not what I was expecting at all. If you were going to the Mint for instance it wouldn’t say “Mint” it would say Bradburn/Livingston or something equally not helpful. So I ended up at another bus station. Luckily the next driver was uber helpful on that. It was a bit longer walk but it was the best that could be done and better than where I was getting otherwise.

The Mint was amazing. I had originally just wanted to go because I wanted to mint my own coin (you can and I did) but I am so glad that I went! Australian coin history is really interesting! Some highs of the tour were:

1: The officers who looked after the prisoners were paid in rum so there were houses that were actually being bought with rum! They stopped that though because wives were also being traded for rum…

2:They discontinued the 1 and 2 cent pieces in Australia because nothing could be bought for that amount anymore and it was costing more to produce the coins than they were worth.

3: If another coin is discontinued it would be the 5 cent coin because it costs 6 cents to make it and again nothing can be bought for that amount anymore. The tour guide said it was really unlikely that would happen any time soon though. She said it is the most popular coin and it would make giving change difficult.

4: The reason that the $2 coin is smaller than the $1 coin is because the government decided after the $1 coin had been minted that it wanted a $2 coin and the mint couldn’t go any bigger. The Kiwis take pride in the fact that their currency is correct: The $1 is smaller than the $2. There is an intense but friendly rivalry between the two countries and sadly the Kiwis got the upper hand on that one.

5: The man who won the original design competition for Australian currency worked for the mint for like 40 years and then retired from that to become the personal jewelry designer to the Queen!

6: The 2000 Olympic medals were made at the mint. The Bronze was made from recycled 1 and 2 cent pieces because it meant that each medal hand been touched by all the citizens.

7: Paper money is made in note printing Victoria and their money is recycled into trash containers.

8: Australia did not have its own currency for many years because they used the currency found washed up on shore from trade ships. It got tricky paying for something in Dutch coins and getting change in Rupees though. They liked to cut coins in pieces to make change as well but then the medal degraded a lot quicker.

9: England sent 40000 Spanish coins to Australia because they were experiencing a coin shortage and they had extra of those laying around. The Governor of Australia had a convicted felon stamp out the center of each coin and mint it so then they had 80000 coins. Yes the convict was in prison for currency forgery so he had the knowledge.

10: These donut coins from #9 resemble washers and are worth a lot of money! One sold the other day for overall half a million dollars. Basically they are the first minted coins in Australia. They are rare because people did use them as washers. There is a story that a farmer was having a bad day and to top it off his tractor broke down in the field. When he lifted the hood he found a donut coin. Needless to say his day and life got a lot better!

11: The 50 cent piece use to be round but it was too close in size to the 20 cent piece so they changed it. It also used to contain 80% silver because the government wanted it to be special. Unfortunately, people figured out the silver was worth 57 cents so they were hoarding them and it had to be changed to less silver content.

12: Apparently there are some $1 coins here that have the 10 cent piece design on them and they are worth $500.

13: The Queen’s picture has changed over time to account for her aging!I would have never noticed that. 

Those last two were courtesy of a guy I met in the lobby who was really disappointed that I hadn’t been to our mint in the US…

Well after the Mint I was going to go to the Dinosaur Museum but that didn’t pan out. For one the bus would have gotten me there like an hour after closing and for two I had spent that money on a nice Two-up (game from Anzac Day) set…beautiful I might add. So I then went back to the station to take the bus as close to the embassies as I could get. Lucky for me I got the same uber helpful bus driver…not so lucky for him! He dropped me off at the closest point and I was able to walk to see several embassies. There was the Chinese embassy which was on a grand scheme and has often been said it belongs in DisneyLand but hey go big or go home. The British one was very cold and clean. The New Zealand one was like the British one but had a lot of windows giving it a more environmental look. The Canadian one has maple leaves stamped in the concrete and a big totem pole out front. The totem pole threw me off because that isn’t what I think of when I think of Canada. Anyway the Papua New Guinea one was the best as it had like hand carved masks covering its exterior. The South African one was out of this world beautiful. I looked into that and apparently it is rare for South Africa to even have an embassy. 

After I had seen enough embassies I went for  a walk along Lake Burley Griffin which I was told is Australia’s biggest manmade lake. I just discovered that it is named after Walter Burley Griffin, the AMERICAN architect who won the competition to design the city of Canberra! Anyway the walk was nice because there was a beautiful Chinese Garden and the water was so peaceful. I could see the National Museum, Black Mountain, and the water geyser from there.They had the weirdest statue there of a horse stepping on a swallow to represent the agility of the horse or something...it makes me laugh still...

It was getting dark by then so I decided to head to my lodgings. This time I opted for a dorm room in university housing which was actually quite nice. It hadn’t been renovated in a really long time and everything was very basic but man was that one clean room! I was impressed (yes Andrea I left housekeeping a nice note and tip, you’ve taught me well). I also had a balcony that offered a wonderful view. The room was located on the campus of ANU (Australian National University). So I will just go ahead and cross staying in a dorm room off my list. Getting there on the bus was a bit tricky but I made a new friend who knew right where I needed to get off. It was humorous though because I was complaining about the buses instead of Sydney Trains and she had lived in Sydney for 12 months and of course hated it. She said there were too many people and it was dirty. I took personal offense to that! Yes Canberra was cleaner and had less people but I still like Sydney better. Sydney has life to it I would say is the best way to put it. 

 View from balcony

The next morning I was determined to get to the War Memorial so go I did. It was really massive. The grounds themselves were a museum. There were lots of statues which makes me think that is something I don’t see much back home and it pretty cool. There were trees that had importance for one reason or another. One was planted by the Queen or something and one was from a cone that was retrieved from Gallipoli. There were military devices scattered about as well. The museum inside of the War Memorial was beautiful and covered everything I would say. They had uniforms, planes, medals, statues, etc. When you enter the Memorial you see the walls of remembrance and the eternal flame. I was on a mission though.

So when I went to the Poppy Park in Penrith I had purchased 4 Poppies and they arrived just before I left on my trip. I copied down the information off each flower determined to put a poppy by their names at the memorial. The staff was really helpful with printing me off the location of each name and a little about them. I was able to make that happen with their help. Although I think they were puzzled why I had an American accent and four different deceased Australian Soldiers names. I had some leftover poppies so I put those by the soldiers with the last name Phillips on the wall. Most of them already had flowers though but a few didn’t. Popular name here! Good taste what can I say. Then I put some on the current wall memorial for some reason it was that one that affected me the most. Some flowers that were there had pictures on them with a little about the people and it made it that much more real. 

There was also a statue of Nike in the museum that was really breathtaking. I enjoy learning about mythology and to see it incorporated into history this way was nice I think. So it was called Winged Victory and was originally located in the town of Marrickville which had a population of about 35,000 and 450 of their men lost their lives in WWI. This huge sculpture was created for the town square to "mark a town's sorrow at its loss and pride in the achievements of its sons." The description on the statue tells of how Australia gained major confidence in its place in the world after WWI. How the men came home to what they believed to be everlasting peace but it was not to be. That room was dedicated to the stories of the widows, the psychological impacts, and the physical handicaps that resulted from the war. It was my favorite room.

After that I walked down the center of the city basically the part that runs from The War Memorial to The Parliament House. There were many statues in remembrance of each war. 

 Parliament

War Memorial

Then I loaded back on the bus because my train to come back left at 5pm and I didn’t want to miss it. The train trip back was nice as well. I sat next to a chatty Cathy so you know I was all about that. And that was the end of that. Overall it was a good trip. I liked it there (but not better than Sydney or Melbourne). The public transport was a big negative but the cleanliness and lack of people was refreshing. The cleanliness was a little sterile though as it isn’t as if Sydney is dirty. I would go back if I had the time but I don’t. I saw the things that were most important to me but there are tons of things to see and like 90% of everything is free. I am not interested in US politics and although Australian politics seem much more lively I didn’t need to see inside the Parliament. Did I mention I really liked the Mint?

Other pictures (and these found bigger...looking at you Amigo) can be found here.

I will end here wishing everyone a happy week!