Around Canberra
The day after the reunion was another official event, a morning tea, but Gauss and I were tapped out. Instead, we had breakfast at the hostel cafe.
Then we took a walk to Blundell's Cottage on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin where he used to go fishing, meandering past government buildings and stepping aside for bikers cruising the lakeshore walk.
Breakfast in the Canberra Central YHA cafe
Then we took a walk to Blundell's Cottage on the shore of Lake Burley Griffin where he used to go fishing, meandering past government buildings and stepping aside for bikers cruising the lakeshore walk.
Gauss in front of Blundell's Cottage, where he used to go fishing every weekend
On the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, with government buildings in the background
The comely Telstra tower now rises in the background. The environmentalists lost that fight.
Mapmaker must take hero shot here. It's a memorial to Captain Cook.
Gauss, too
Closed paths on our return trip—with no detours marked—took us far out of our way, and by the time we got back to the hostel, we were both ready to take a nap. Canberra has beautiful open spaces, but it's really set up for auto traffic, not pedestrians. We put together a quick lunch for ourselves in the hostel kitchen and then rested up until Allison came to pick us up a couple hours later for a tour of the Australian National Gallery with Jenny and another classmate, Margie.
Outside the museum are some cool sculptures, including a globe decorated with aboriginal designs and these six foot tall cast metal bosc pears
One of the current shows was a big collection of abstract expressionism—Rothko, Jackson Pollock—but we took only a cursory walk through. The five galleries of Aboriginal Art were of greater interest to us.
Just inside the main entrance is this forest of Aboriginal hollow log coffins. Read the full story here:
I was entranced by the Aboriginal paintings' rhythmic progression of dots and hachures.
Just outside the museum is an installation called Skyspace, by artist James Turrell. Alison urged us to visit it. I'm skeptical of self-absorbed modern artists who make bizarre creations, but it won me over. It consists of a large, circular chamber surrounded by an invisible-edge pool, contained in a rectangular enclosure.
Around the back, there's an entrance into the circular chamber
When you go inside, you can sit and look through the hole in the ceiling. We chatted and watched a jet fly by. There's a wicked echo inside, too, and for some reason, we all started laughing.
Afterwards the five of us walked across the spacious capital grounds to the National Archive for a small exhibit of natural history art. This is an annual show of contemporary works depicting the physical world, and ranged from a collection of beetles crafted from cut paper to blown glass bird heads to prints of trees to an armchair upholstered to resemble a pink anemone.
We had one last dinner with friends that evening—Thai food for the third time, in the Dixon neighborhood north of town—and then it was early to bed for our flight to Sydney the next day.
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