Travelog for: Elisabeth

Today after Bec had finished work we set off on a rather long trip to Canberra, Australia's national capital. Canberra is a three hour drive south of Sydney and we travelled the whole way in fairly heavy rain. Not the most pleasant of trips!
On our arrival we were welcomed most excitably by the two little girls who live at the house we were visiting. One was most taken by little old me (although she kept forgetting my name!) and introduced me to someone she thought I might get along with, but after a stroll in this carriage we realised that in actual fact we had very little in common!



Oh, by the way, the scarf was lent to me as it can get very cold in Canberra as it is not all that far away from the Australian snowfields!

Today we visited Old Parliament House which was opened in 1927 and was the seat of the Federal Government in Australia until 1988 when the new building was opened. Now, Old Parliament House is a museum and the National Portrait Gallery.

It was a bit cold outside, so I thought I might rug up a little.


But, my hat kept falling off, so I decided not to wear it.

Old Parliament House was only a short drive from where we were staying.


The first part we visited was the Senate (the Upper House of the the Parliament) and while we were here we met a group of school children who were visiting from Queensland and listened in on their tour! They re-enacted the first time my grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II opened parliament in 1954!

Here I am with Kalli pretending to be an Australian Senator.


and here I am with 'my' family's Royal Seal which I noticed on the door to the Senate!


Next we visited the House of Representatives (the legislative chamber) and sat on the front bench of the government. We wondered why the front bench had no desks, when the 'back benches' did, but the guide could give us no answers other than "it's tradition"

Next stop...
Parliament House

Old Parliament House was getting too crowded and was really only meant to be temporary anyway, so new Parliament House was built on top of the hill behind it and opened in 1988 (the year of Australia's bicentenary). We didn't go in because we had hungry and slightly bored children to contend with, but here we are outside ....

Our final destination of the day was Cockington Green, somewhere all of us ToyVoyagers were very interested in going, because their slogan is "Where Little Always Counts!"

Cockington Green is a theme park of miniatures - it started off with just English sights but is now extending into the rest of the world's wonders.

Look, Braemear Castle and just big enough for me!


JamaBana got a little silly and thought he might pretend to be a handsome prince coming to the rescue!


A maze to follow with your eyes from a platform high above....


Is that a loch ness monster?


And look, more castles from all over the world. How on earth is a princess to choose (and they're all just about roughly the right size for me!!)

Chateau Bojinice (we will check this spelling!)


Trakai Castle


A Turkish Summer Palace


Lovely!

But getting very cold, so time to head for home.

On our way back to the car we passed this sign for a shop called Thumbelinas and just had to have a photo taken with it!

The War Memorial at Canberra was built as a place in Australia where families and friends could grieve for those buried in places far away and difficult to visit (such as Turkey, France, Belgium) following World War I.


We are a little hard to see, but we are sitting on the steps!


Here we are with a statue of Simpson and his donkey.


Simpson became famous for his work as a stretcher-bearer and as the man with the donkey at Gallipoli between 25 April, 1915, when he landed, and his death in action on 19 May, 1915. Using one of the donkeys landed on the first day for water carrying and, later, a second animal he transported wounded men day and night from the fighting to the beach on ANZAC Cove. He is probably one of Australia's most famous soldiers.



This is the view of Anzac Parade. In the distance you can see both Parliament Houses.

Soon, it was time to start the three hour drive back 'home' to Sydney.



On the way out of Canberra, we stopped at Lake George.



Lake George is a freak phenomenon. It has been known to disappear virtually overnight. The lake has been totally dry in 1837, 1870, 1902, most of the1930s and the early1980s. It has been completely full in 1852, 1897, 1925, the 1950s and the mid-1980s. There is no pattern to this strange phenomenon. It is completly dry now (apparently because of the drought). The water you can see is puddles from the heavy rain! Due to the complete emptiness of the lake, it is currently being used by farmers, who are allowing their animals to graze there.

Sometimes it appears as though there is water in it, but it is only a mirage!

Australian country towns are very fond of building 'big things'. There are over 146 such objects around the country, such as big bananas, pineapples, oysters, trouts, rocking horses etc!

On the way back we stopped in Goulburn for a "stop, revive, survive" break and visited the new site of the Big Merino (something we just had to see to complete the weekend after seeing the "little things" in Canberra!

The Big Merino is a 15 metre tall cement Merino sheep. It used to contain a shop underneath and visitors could climb to the top and look out through the Merino's eyes to view the local area until the Expressway bypassed the town and tourist trade dropped off.



Late last month, the Big Merino was moved to a location 800m up the road, closer to the Hume Freeway, to increase visitor numbers. This was very complex operation as the Merino is  as high as a four-storey building and as wide as a country road! It involved cutting the power cables on that section of road, cutting off the rams legs (and other unmentionables!) and using an 96 wheeled truck moving at three kilometres an hour!

Tonight Bec and some of the teachers she works with in Kindergarten went out for a 'end of reports' dinner. In my honour they chose a little French restaurant. Yum!



It was so hard to decide what to eat from the menu! Everything looked and sounded so good!

We went into the City today. It was a little bit of a complicated trip in as Bec missed the exit off the Expressway to get to her sister's house so we had to detour around the Sydney Airport for 15 minutes waiting for an opportunity to find a place to do a U-Turn. You wouldn't think that she's been driving there for nearly 2 years would you? Then we had to drive to Wolli Creek station and dodge HUGE puddles to park the car.

Eventually we got on the train and made our way into the city.



Our first stop was the Queen Victoria Building, commonly known as The QVB, home of many very expensive designer shops and displays dedicated to my great-great (?) grandmother, Queen Victoria.



This is The Royal Clock in the Queen Victoria Building. On the hour it shows scenes of English royalty: King John signing the Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, King Henry VIII surrounded by his wives, Queen Elizabeth I knighting Sir Francis Drake on the deck of the Golden Hind in 1558, and the execution of King Charles I in January 1649.



Unfortunately we'd just missed the midday chiming and didn't have time to wait for the 1pm show because we had so much more to see!

This was one of my favourite sights in the building. It is a life sized tableau of Queen Victoria on her Coronation Day in 1838. Doesn't she look so young and beautiful (must run in the family!)


Also in the case are replicas of the Crown Jewels.

Here I am trying on Queen Mary's crown from 1911. I think it suits me beautifully. Do you agree?


After doing some window shopping in the designer stores, we headed out into the city streets. Outside the King Street entrance is this bronze statue of Queen Victoria. It is very well travelled as it used to stand outside of the Irish Parliament until it was gifted to Australia in 1947.

Next stop on our City adventure was the Sydney Tower, previously known as Centrepoint. Sydney Tower is the the highest point above the city and it is the same height as the Eiffel Tower. From here you can have 360* views of the city and surrounds (sadly it was very overcast today, so the views weren't at their best! But we could still take in the major sights of the city.

The city skyline, just hiding the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. The mark in the harbour to the right is Fort Denison, which you might have read about in Kalli's travelog and the green is the Botanical Gardens surrounding Farm Cove.


The building with the green domes is the QVB. It takes up that whole city block!


Here is Darling Harbour and the Pyrmont Bridge. The warship is a part of the Sydney Maritime Museum.


This is St Mary's Cathedral, which is the seat of the Catholic church in Australia. It is the largest church in Australia and probably the largest Roman Catholic church in the Southern hemisphere. In front of it is Hyde Park, which was named after Hyde Park in London (of course!) and the large fountain towards the front of the photo is the Archibald Fountain, unveiled in 1932 in honour of Australia's contribution to the Great War in France.


And here is a better view of the Harbour Bridge, which we crossed later in the day on the train to St Leonards to visit Bec's uncle at Royal North Shore Hospital.


Time for some afternoon tea...... What a view!

Elisabeth packed up her travel kit and left us today, leaving us very sad that she has gone.



Bon Voyage Elisabeth!

Pooh, finally I've arrived in Munich. Luckily I had a little bear as travel companion and had someone to talk to. It would have been too boring otherwise (I have read my travel diary already several times, know it by heart now). I didn't touch the small bar of chocolate though that was my food for survival (in case the journey gets too long) ... but then I have to take care of my weight ..... I love ballet dancing and want to continue to dance.
The welcome was warm - all the toyvoyagers in Munich came to say hello to me.

Ah, traveling abroad on my own is not always easy. Sometimes you can be very lonely ..... and then I think about Harold, where did he go? What is he doing now? Sometimes I miss him although we broke up.
Here in Munich I met a new guy - Charles or Karl (in German). He is a resident toy in Pandamao's apartment and he is really handsome, broad shoulders (and belly) to lean on 
Will he be able to make me forget Harold?

Hello, hello,
after long days of rain, rain, rain and rain I finally could go out and do a bit of sight-seeing in Munich. I saw the opera at Gärtnerplatz, Marienplatz, Hofbräuhaus (huge halles full of beer-drinking people) and the Viktualienmarkt (great for daily shopping of vegetables).