The Greatest Journey -- Parliaments

Having been somewhat disappointed with the National Zoo and Aquarium, I decided to take Isabella to some of Canberra's more famous institutions. Canberra, as the capital of Australia, of course is the home of the Australian Parliament. The current structure was opened in 1988 as part of the bicentenary celebrations and because the old Parliament House was, by that point, unsuitable for a variety of reasons, mostly to do with size.

So, that morning, we drove to New Parliament House and had a look around. It's a very interesting building with a sort of unmistakable architecture. Because the drought had broken and there was now plenty of water to go around, the water feature in front of New Parliament House was filled with water, which was a nice touch. Inside, there are many portraits of former Prime Ministers, Speakers of the House, Presidents of the Senate and Governor-Generals. There were exhibits on the Magna Carta and the evolution of Canberra as the national capital. We saw the House of Representatives and the Senate chambers before heading to the roof for a magnificent view of Canberra.

Old Parliament House is not far away, in fact, just a short walk, and so we made our way there next. This was Australia's first Parliament House, completed in 1927 in the art deco style, and it was never intended to be permanent but the Great Depression and World War 2 prevented the construction of something more permanent. When it was opened 300 people worked inside and by the time it closed, 61 years later, that number had skyrocketed to 3 000. There had been some additions over the years but it was clearly not up to the task anymore and that's why New Parliament House was built. Old Parliament House is now the Australian Museum of Democracy and it has many excellent exhibits about the evolution of democracy around the world, moments in Australian history and it preserves the layout as it was in 1988.

I happened upon this museum when my cousin Laura was visiting me. I had suggested it for no real reason other than I had never been inside before. We went and I was impressed from the start. The admission was only $1.00 for students or $2.00 if you had to pay full price and I found the exhibits enthralling. Laura and I both had a great time.

Well, Isabella and I started our wanderings and we passed by the main foyer and some other rooms. We then had a private tour of Old Parliament House and went to the old House of Representatives and Senate. We were shown models of how Old Parliament House looked upon its completion and what alterations were made until it closed in 1988. We were then taken around to the Prime Minister's Office and the Speaker's Office.

We also had a chance to participate in a little interactive exercise called Cabinet-in-Confidence a sort of play where visitors re-enact a political debate from the past. The group is given the topic, ours was the Vietnamese Boat People, and are then asked to debate the issue assuming they had been in government at the time. I thought it was interesting, although not terribly exciting. From there, we went up to the press gallery and media rooms and finally the interactive democracy exhibits.

I had a good time but Isabella found herself out of her element, unfortunately. For some reason I had assumed that she was into all this type of political stuff but apparently she wasn't. Apologizing as profusely as I could, I told Isabella that I'd make it up to her somehow and decided the best way would be dinner.

Courgette is a very nice restaurant in Canberra, if a little out of the way and hard to find. I phoned and hoped against hope that they could accommodate the 2 of us that evening and luckily, they could. So, Isabella and I both got well-dressed and made our way to the restaurant. It was quite lovely and we sat down to an excellent meal prepared, no doubt, by some expert chefs. I can't recall exactly what we had, although I do remember I had some delicious duck. It was a little expensive but well worth the expense and I could tell Isabella forgave my misstep with the choice of venues to visit. I was worried that Isabella would be left with unfavourable memories of Canberra but I think this dinner was a high point.

This was the penultimate night of the trip as the next day we were off to Sydney and Isabella was flying off to New Zealand the day after. We had nearly circled Australia, covering over 10 000 kilometers in the process, and now our month-long adventure was drawing to a close.