National Museum of Australia, Old Parliament House

My morning involved a considerable amount of putting one foot ahead of the other, planting it on the ground, repeating the motions with the other foot, and then repeating the whole cycle over and over. In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m talking about walking. This morning I first walked to the National Museum of Australia and then to the Old Parliament House.

Except for a few short scenic, peaceful segments, I think I can safely say they ranked amongst the top ten least interesting walks I’ve ever taken. Although I admit that recency might be playing tricks with my memory there.

This city seems to be built for drivers, less so for pedestrians. Walking to the National Museum of Australia this morning, following the walking route Google Maps gave me, I came to a point where the sidewalk on my side of the road ended abruptly. I had to cross the street between intersections to get to the sidewalk on the other side of the street. There appeared to be enough room such that they could have continued the sidewalk, but didn’t.

It happened again a little farther on the same street and I had to cross back to the side of the street I was on before. Plus, drivers seem to rule at intersections, not pedestrians. And that was just on the way to the museum. I’ll have more to say about walking to the Old Parliament House later.

(Yesterday’s post regarding my arrival in Canberra was a tad on the bitchy side. Sorry to start out like that way again today. But read on. There is some good stuff in here.)

National Museum of Australia

The National Museum of Australia is a big, beautiful structure. It curves around in a colourful arc with a lot of decorative elements hanging off it. Outside, in the centre of the arc is a garden, reflecting pool, and decorated open space.

Inside, straight walls are the exception. Most are curved. Even most of the large video screens that form part of the exhibits are curved.

The entry hall is a huge, tall atrium. In it sits a museum shop, a cafe, an information desk, an old iconic Australian car with a recreational trailer hitched to it, and a huge Muttaburrasaurus skeleton. The sign beside it says the skeleton was discovered in 1963 by a grazier on his property near Muttaburra in Queensland. Again according to the sign, it’s one of the most complete dinosaur skeletons found in Australia so far.

It is free to visit most of the permanent exhibits at the National Museum of Australia. However, there was a VR Antartica experience that required buying a ticket. I didn’t.

There’s also a “Tim and Gina Fairfax Discovery Centre” that is free for museum members, but nonmembers have to pay $15 (AUD) for one adult and one child, $10 for each additional child and $5 for each additional adult. According to the visitor map handed out at the information desk, it’s “A fun and immersive play-and-learn space for 0 – 6 year olds.”

Zero to six. So, new parents, as soon as the new mom gives birth, head out and take your infant to the discovery centre right away. It’s for them.

Being significantly beyond six years old, I decided to not check it out.

The exhibits I did see are primarily about Aboriginal history, lands, culture, and current lives. There is also one section on major forces, like climate and its knock-on effects, that change the world, but that too has Aboriginal ties.

One large gallery explores Australian history since the European settlement. Again according to the museum map, in that gallery you can “find some of the Museum’s most treasured objects.” That is to say, you can find those objects and learn about Australian history when that gallery isn’t closed for redevelopment, which is to say, not when I visited the museum.

Aboriginal Acknowledgements

About all of that Aboriginal content, this might be a good point for a short aside. At least from outward appearances, and I suspect beyond, Australia seems to be much farther along in reconciliation with Aboriginals in the land now called Australia than Canada is in reconciling with the First Nations in the land now called Canada.

(I’ve seen Aboriginals referred to also as both “First Peoples” and “First Nations” here. In Canada, I’ve only seen and heard the use of the term “First Nations,” not “First Peoples.” I haven’t thought through the implications, if any, of “First Peoples” versus the “First Nations.”)

If memory serves, here in Australia, every museum I’ve been to, and many of the commercial cruises and tours I’ve been on, commence with a statement acknowledging the First Peoples. Some museums put a First Peoples acknowledgement cover over their website and you can’t look at the website until you click something to clear that cover. I’ve also seen a couple of apologies to the First Peoples for wrongs that have been done to them.

Good on them.

Old Parliament House

Lake Burley Griffen divides Canberra in two. The Parliamentary Zone is to the south of the lake. My hotel and the National Museum of Australia are to the north. My next stop, Old Parliament House, is in the Parliamentary Zone. Getting from one to the other involved walking over a boring bridge over the lake.

The road that comes off the bridge into the Parliamentary Zone is almost an expressway. It’s straight. The speed limit is 70 km/hour. So, below expressway speeds, but still quite fast. Intersections are few and far between and there are no pedestrian crossings between the intersections. On the plus side, it is a well-treed area.

Which is to say, like my walk to the museum, it wasn’t something I’d do just for the joy of walking.

Dating from 1927, Old Parliament House was the first Australian parliament building to be built in the newly constructed, purpose-built capital city, Canberra. I’m not an expert in architecture, but I think the exterior was modelled on a late 19th-century penitentiary. I might have the era wrong, but I think I’m right about the style. They only added some minor decorative elements so as not to be called too derivative of penitentiary design.

(To be fair, when I walked around to the entrance, which is on the far side of the building from where most people walk or drive to it, the building wasn’t quite so penitentiary-like. There are some wide steps, better windows, and mildly decorative lights.)

The inside is much better and now houses the Museum of Australian Democracy.

Exhibits include a gallery of political cartoons (I think that’s a temporary exhibit; I’m not sure), an exhibit on the importance of a free press and some of the challenges to it, as well as a number of exhibits on the functioning of Australian democracy and on democracy itself.

This is the Old Parliament House, and they’ve left some of the old chambers and offices as they were. For example, I was able to go into the Senate Chamber, the Prime Minister’s suite of offices, the House Opposition leader’s suite of offices, offices for the Government and Opposition leaders of the Senate, meeting rooms for the governing and opposition parties, the Cabinet Room, and probably a couple I’ve forgotten.

Unfortunately, the House of Representatives Chamber was closed and won’t be reopened until a couple of days after I leave Canberra. (They’re waiting a couple of days so it won’t be quite so obvious that they closed it solely because I’m here.)

I was a wee bit surprised to learn that Australia calls its lower house the House of Representatives, not the House of Commons as it’s called in Canada and in the mother of Westminster parliaments, the United Kingdom.

I also learned that Australia elects its senate, rather than appointing it as is the case in Canada.

One thing I already knew but saw repeated here is that voting is compulsory in Australia. Eligible voters in Australia can be fined if they don’t vote. Although, I think they can go to the polls and basically abstain.

There are two open air courtyards within the Old Parliament House: the House of Representatives Courtyard and the Senate Courtyard.

Lunch

There’s a room off the House of Representatives Courtyard that houses a nice cafe, with tables spilling out into the courtyard. I had lunch at the cafe. Some people ate at the outdoor tables, but it was too hot and humid out there for me. So I ate inside in air-conditioned comfort.

My lunch consisted of tasty fish and chips and a glass of wine. The former came with a nice, small green salad to satisfy my roughage requirements, but I don’t know if satisfying my roughage requirements was part of the cafe’s thinking.