Sunday, November 25 - Exploring the Canberra Area



Note amazing insects!

We drove over to the Australian National Botanic Garden which is really amazing and covers all the horticultural zones of the country. The Garden café opens at 8:30 so we thought we’d get breakfast first. We split an order of eggs Benedict and two orders of croissants with Davidson plum jam and lime/orange marmalade, and sat outdoors on the deck overlooking the garden. We were looking for the Gang Gang cockatoo again, hoping to see the red headed male, and set off on the main trail. And shortly thereafter, Bob and Hilary saw a pair as they flew off! I hope we go back tomorrow so I can see them, too. This is one of the best botanic gardens I have ever seen, almost rivaling Kirstenbosch in Cape Town - rain forest, dry eucalypt forest, and more.

Galah Parrots

Water Dragon

We left when our two hour parking ticket expired and drove south and west into parkland, past Mt Stromlo Observatory, and pulled into the Namadgi National Park visitor center and took a short hike around a lake full of Pacific Black Ducks along with many very cute ducklings. We also saw some tiny brown cubes sitting on top of a row of rocks: Wombat droppings! Their scat is shaped like perfect ice cubes! Unfortunately since the temperature was close to 90, the wombat was sensibly down in his cool den!

We bought ice creams at the NP shop and continued on through eucalypt forest, rolling steep country with small rivers. We took a mile hike along one river in Orroral campground and saw many lovely flowers.

As we left the campground, three kangaroos  bolted in front of the car!  Fortuantely Hil was able to stop without hitting them, but I can see why there is so much road kill in Australia!

We started back towards the capital through neat suburbs, each surrounded by parkland. When the road turned into freeway, berms lined the road to protect the suburbs from the noise and sight of all those cars. The whole area is very well planned out and seems to be a very pleasant place in which to live.

We entered the huge traffic circle that surrounds Capital Hill where Parliament resides. It was thoroughly wooded and hard to believe that one was in the middle of a city! We crossed the bridge that connects the Federal and City government centers and returned to the hotel.

Hil and I set off on foot to see the War Memorial. A huge boulevard, the ANZAC Parade, runs from the lake that bisects the city to a hill, topped with the memorial building. It is lined with a wide swath of eucalyptus trees on either side and with lawn and red gravel running down the center. Along the Parade are individual monuments to soldiers lost in Vietnam, Korea, etc and a beautiful blue glass monument to the nurses lost in all the wars. We walked up to the building with the grave of the unknown soldier in the center. Along the walls are all the names of all the soldiers lost, starting with WW I, many festooned with red poppies from the recent Remembrance Day. The whole memorial is very moving. A piper in a kilt was preparing to play taps as we left at 5 PM.

We decided to eat simply tonight, and walked over to London Burgers & Beer, and got a pitcher of beer and three very large, delicious burgers and walked home to rest up for tomorrow.