We woke to an overcast day however, the forecast did not include rain.
Today we planned on a visit to Parliament House and also a visit to the National Museum of Australia. If time permitted, we also hoped to visit the National Film & Sound Archive.
Being undecided in what order we would visit, we headed towards the Canberra CBD discussing the options as we drove. The traffic was heavy and a detour around the heavy traffic saw us heading across the bridge that would take us to Parliament House.
We were parked and at the entry point at 9:15am. It was surprising to see a member of the Australian Federal Police Force at the entry point carrying what appeared to be a machine gun.
We had to go through scanners to enter the building and our personal effects were x-rayed. “His” key ring had a small pen knife attached so the keys had to be left in the cloak room.
We arrived just in time to join a tour of the building. The tour went for 40 minutes and included both houses and other “public” parts of the building. We were also able to take an elevator to the roof as access via the grass that runs up to the roof is no longer permitted.
Once again, there was a presence of Australian Federal Police patrolling the roof. We spoke with a couple of them and they were interested in our travels. Returning to the ground flor, we retrieved keys (and knife) and headed back towards the city.
We stopped at the National Museum of Australia and spent a couple of hours touring the exhibitions. Fortunately many of the exhibitions were new and we learnt that they are rotated from time to time. One special item was a canon recovered off “The Endeavour”.
We attempted to stop at the National Film and Sound Archive but were unable to locate parking.
Returning to the caravan later in the afternoon, we started to think about our return home and the fact we would be heading south in a couple of weeks time to collect a new car.