The Many Attractions of Canberra

I didn't go to all of them, of course, as I've already been to most of them, like Questacon (twice), both Parliament Houses, the Australian War Memorial, Cockington Green, and the National Dinosaur Museum (the only thing I've been to in Canberra which I wouldn't recommend to anybody.). But, there were a few that we did not go to, so we went to 3: Black Mountain Tower, the National Museum of Australia, and the Australian War Memorial (again, since we didn't see all of it last time, and we were looking for 2 things in particular.). So let's get to my day, and as requested (almost demanded) by Victor and Ebony, I will try to paragraph a bit more. Try being the operative word here. But try. [And, yes, I did it again. I was posting, then we had to watch a movie. It'll be easier in Sydney.]

I woke up around 8-ish (finally!), and then went on my laptop for a while, then after breakfast and so on, we decided to go to Black Mountain Tower. It was a fair drive, since Black Mountain Tower is situated on the top of Black Mountain (No. Way.). We had to drive up the hill until we were something like over 800 metres above sea level, just to get to the tower. And when we got there, we just looked up. It was massive. I thought it was bending, but it was actually the clouds moving behind it. It was pretty freaky. We bought a few tickets, then went straight up into the looking platform. We had to take a lift, and instead of ground numbers that lit up, it was: 810 m (above sea level), 820 m, 830 m, all the way up to 880 m above sea level. We went outside and tried to spot a few landmarks, behind a barrier (probably why my fear of heights didn't show up) and in windy conditions. We spotted a few, but not too easily. Then we went inside, and had another look around. We saw a few more landmarks, because above the windows they had signs to assist. But when you're almost 900 m above sea level, there's not much you can easily identify. We also had a look through some coin-operated binoculars, but most of the time was spent with my brother trying to work out how to use them, since he's too short to stand up and look through them and not short enough to sit down. In the end, he got about 10 seconds looking through them, sitting on a chair trying to twist his body so he could see them. Then, after morning tea, we decided to go to the National Museum of Australia.

We got in, and there was no admission fee, which was pretty good. We walked around, looking at many items, such as old Hills Hoists (and if you don't know what that is, then shame on you. Wikipedia link provided.), native items, and so on. There was really good stuff in there, but the whole thing seemed a bit cluttered, and unstructured. There was no rhyme or reason to it (I've been waiting ages to use that idiom. I love it.). But all in all, it was pretty good. We stayed there for about an hour, and then we decided to go to the Australian War Memorial. (I'd have said more here, but there's not much to say.)

We arrived at the War Memorial after trying to see if we (well, more I) could get into the Australian Academy of Science. We seemingly could not, so we moved on to the War Memorial. We were visiting a few things, starting with post-1945 wars, that we had not seen before. We were also looking for an Army truck that Mick (Shay's dad) was in when he got hit by a grenade (I think), and that he donated to the War Memorial. We did find a truck that had belonged to his unit and had been damaged by a grenade, so we took a few pictures of that. I'm almost certain that that was his truck. Anyway. After looking through displays of the Korean War, Vietnam War, the War in Iraq and so on (I couldn't find anything on the Cold War, although I suppose it wasn't really something you could display.), we went to their exhibit, which was on animals in war, which my Mum and my brother really wanted to see. It was really interesting, especially all the stories about the animals. Then, we went to see what was my primary reason for wanting to see the Memorial again. My grandmother (not Nanny) was doing a family tree, and she found one of our relatives who had been involved in World War I. I was told that he was killed at Lone Pine, so I went to look for him. His name was Angus Valentine Cameron, so we looked for A.V. Cameron. But we could only find A. Cameron's. Still, I wanted to find him. So we went to the research centre, and trawled many sites looking for him. It took 45 minutes, but we found him. He was listed under Angus Cameron, and was not killed at Lone Pine, but buried at Lone Pine. He was the only Angus Cameron to be killed at Gallipoli, so it must have been him. (He was actually killed on the landing, which was pretty special in a morbid sort of way.).

Then it was time to get lunch. By this time it was 3, so we were pretty hungry. And when we got home, we didn't do much. I started to blog, but my Dad had bought a movie, so we all watched that. (The movie was 'Twilight,' though, so I wasn't complaining. I was just surprised he bought that.). And that was my Tuesday.

To replies away! 12 comments from 5 people, which is faintly ridiculous. But anyway. Comments.
*Shafi: Yes, yes you are.
*Victor: I try to paragraph. And you, in fact, got second. Lol.
*Shafi (x4): Movie info: not a problem. And I do know the reason behind them changing it, what I meant to say was that nobody complained about the name. I probably should have made that clearer.
*Victor: You say what we're all thinking.
*Shafi: It's OK. Just please: when your comments take up half of all of them, think about cutting back.
*Rosa: It was pretty awesome. I loved it.
*Kevin: I would recommend going. And I think AC won't comment until after the holidays. Just a guess.
*Ebony: Stop bagging Stephenie Meyer. She is awesome. That is all. Fanclub anthem thing is also stopping, it was getting kind of old. And about me thinking about my day in what I'm going to say in my blog: I actually do that. All the time. I think in blog posts. But the thing is, it helps me think. It's weird, but awesome.
*Ebony: I already said this. And stop bagging my reading. Seriously.

Going to finish now, as we're leaving for Sydney in about 5 minutes [on Wednesday, remember?]. I'll say all about this next post. I also don't expect many comments, because of another (incredibly) late post. I won't do these in Sydney.

There is a difference between blogging every day and blogging about every day (but I try to do both),
AB