Dec 2, 2012 - Old and New Parliament House

On the buses and back into town to visit New Parliament House. Before we caught the connecting bus we had some donuts in the Canberra Plaza (large shopping centre). The views from Parliament House are terrific. It is an amazing building - the thought that went into the design of the building as well as the beauty and size of the building. We went on a 50 min tour by a retired lawyer, John, who made it a very entertaining time as we went into the House of Reps, the Senate and the Great Hall with its amazing tapestry. Keagan asked some very...

Dec 1, 2012 - Australian War Memorial

After a belated start to the day (- we were waiting at the wrong bus stop, couldn't read the map properly, for a bus that didn't come!) we caught a taxi directly to the War Memorial. It is only a donation to enter the memorial and we attached ourselves straight away to the guided tour that took in the Commemorative Area. Here is the long walls housing the rolls of honour and the magnificent Hall of Memory which houses the unknown soldier and is made up of over 6 million pieces of mosaic tiles. The stain glass windows and the mosaic pictures...

Nov 30, 2012 - All day at Questacon

Up early to catch the bus into town where we had to find the hearing service to pick up Mary's hearing aid that we posted from SA. It was a short walk from the bus terminal so once we picked up the hearing aid, we were back to catch the bus across Lake Burley Griffin to Questacon (past Flynn Place). For the next 6 hours we criss crossed the various levels of Questacon (dodging the hundreds of school children) having a go at just about every activity on show. Mum liked the earthquake house where you sit inside a pretend room and experience a...

Nov 29, 2012 - Dog on the Tucker Box and Canberra

Gundagi is a small town of about 2500 people on the side of Murrumbidgee River. It has a number of historic buildings and some beautiful sporting and recreational areas in the river. We visited the Information Centre and here we discovered Rusconi's Masterpiece in Marble. It is a magnificent model building, standing about 3 ft tall made out of thousands of individually carved pieces of different coloured marble found in NSW. It took 3 hours/night for 28 years to build. Frank Rusconi was a mason who was apprenticed in Switzerland and came...

Nov 18, 2012 - Home

19th November Our adventure before dementia finished the 15th November when we arrived in our driveway early afternoon. After being on the road for 31 weeks [and still talking], travelling a bit over 20,000 kms it was great feeling to see the house still standing. Naomi has looked after everything very well. Some of the memorable highlights of our adventure was being bogged in the wetlands [maybe that was a low light] a croc tour on the Adelaide River. We will never forget the crocodiles swimming up to the boat and eye balling us. Seeing...

Nov 9, 2012 - Epilog....

Our holiday is well and truly over. We drove about 22000Km in around 4 months. We haven’t yet done the tally of the costs and fuel we used but I’d hazard a guess and say, in a word, substantial. Took according to the figure while uploading my pictures 3,763 frames, mind you a lot of those were combined into Panoramas and the majority are not worth looking at but I didn’t realize how many I had taken on both cameras. Glad we did it this year, we may not be able to get away for long trips for a few years…. So the highlights would have to be...

Aug 28, 2012 - Canberra to Goulburn

The day ends in Golburn where we clocked over our first 1000km. Passing our first "big" icon- the Big Merino we pull up at Governors Hill (Big 4) for the night. Sites are very small, however the park has clean facilities including a good size children's bath, and fully equipped kitchen. Joshiemoo admires the train village and I have a brief moment wishing nandad (Marc's granddad)was here to see his face. I speak to a lovely family from the UK heading back to Sydney and Marc also meet a guy from Cape Patterson and a couple from Geelong....

Jul 27, 2012 - Chinese Immigration detention

This is the tale of the past few days for me. I'm home safe now, but for a while, I was actually worried, almost scared about what was gpoing to happen next. I first realised i may have an issue with my chinese visa a week or so ago. So to prepare for the chance I'd not be able to board the plane to china, I had an alternative route via Istanbul or Dubai sorted out. Even Moscow with a transit was possible. It was all sorted, so imagine my surprise where at Bishkek airport, the chinese airline allowed me to board with the visa I had. They...

Jun 18, 2012 - Fever strikes

So the last weekend before my trip, the worst thing possible happens. I get a fever and spend the whole weekend alternating between shivering uncontrollably and sweating profusely. To make it worse moving was difficult, laying in bed sounded great until i needed to turn the heater off again, then turn it on again. I wasn't feeling great Friday night, but still went to see the movie Prometheus. Fortunately, only in 2D as the 3D would have made me worse I think. The movie was great by the way, the next few days not so much. To make matters...

Jun 12, 2012 - The silk road journey begins

Everything is ready to go, including visas, backpack, camera, shoes, sleeping bag and sleeping mat. I've even found the latest in light traveling: dissolvable paper soap, shampoo, detergent and shaving cream. It comes as little slips of what looks to be paper. Just add water and they dissolve creating whatever cleaning product you need. It does appear after testing that 2 sleeves are needed of the shaving paper. I'll test the rest on the road and buy "replacement" products at the next town i'm in :-) The blog is now ready to go obviously,...

Apr 13, 2012 - Canberra and Sydney

Hi - On my way to Canberra the train stopped for a few minutes in Wagga – the town where Eliza Redman may have ended up. I didn’t have time to search out her grave but I have found a photo on Ancestry.com. I still hope to learn more. There’s much to see in Canberra, the Capital of Australia. An artificial city begun in the 1920’s and expanded in the 1950’s, it does lack a bit of urban charm but the layout of the city is stunning. I walked for miles along the lake, through museums and memorials. Well worth a long day, especially the Old...

Apr 11, 2012 - Final Preparations

Final preparations are well under way, car has been packed, just a few things left to be packed in the van. Heading to Wagga Wagga Friday morning for two nights. Sunday we will move on to Temora to meet up with fellow travellers. Then our 1/2 lap of Australia begins.