The Easter bunny has long since hopped away, we’ve mostly devoured our chocolate eggs, and I’ve finally sifted through my iPhone pics to share with you here. Canberra, our poor unloved capital, turned on some Autumnal charm over the Easter break for my long weekend escape. I love playing tourist, and this weekend was no exception.
Canberra Glassworks resides in the beautifully restored Kingston Powerhouse, and you can freely wander around the Hotshop and Engine Room to watch the students working from an observation deck. Endlessly fascinating, I could have spent hours watching them twirl their hot pokers around.
The National Library of Australia sucked me in to see their Treasures exhibition with their giant hipster glasses (courtesy of the late and great Patrick White), and I was pleasantly surprised to see a number of very familiar items on display that I had researched for a book called Documents That Shaped Australia. It was almost like reliving the book all over again, and I quite enjoyed seeing the items in the flesh, as the images are still so etched in my mind, 2 years on from the book’s release.
A visit to the Nation’s Capital just wouldn’t be complete without a trip to Parliament House. I hadn’t been here since a school excursion about…oh, 20 years ago, and I’m not ashamed to say that politics bores the bejesus out of me most of the time. But where else can you roll down the grassy hill of National Parliament? I even managed to find some art – art in Parliament…who knew?! The Historic Memorials Collection – portraits of past Prime Ministers, was great! What made the visit more interesting was our unintentional detour through a wedding in the gardens of Parliament House. We certainly weren’t dressed for the occasion and were met with some rather bemused stares, so we promptly hotfooted it out of there, hopefully escaping the click of cameras.
Dramatic skies on the drive back home to Sydney.
Easter bunny at work, lamenting the end of the long weekend before hopping away for another year.
Tags: Canberra, Canberra Glassworks, Easter, exhibition, National Library of Australia, Parliament House, Treasures Exhibition
