The railway museum in Canberra

The Australian Railway Historical Society has a large collection of railway equipment on part of what used to be the goods sidings close to Canberra station.  Some of it is yet to be restored (such as a former "Southern Aurora" carriage). However, there's an impressive collection on display and open for inspection. 
I visited the museum when in Canberra.  It's clear that a lot of work has already gone into it.  The items on display include a number of locos and also other equipment such as carriages (including a former buffet car and a sleeping car), a ganger's trolley and more. 

Of course the star attraction is the 60 class Bayer Garratt loco  (number 6029).     I was told that the restoration work on this has reached a stage where the loco will soon be in a position to operate!









However, I found the carriages and rolling stock fascinating, too.  It doesn't seem all that long ago when this was the way we travelled.




The rail motor is operational and I went for a short ride on it.

Driver's view from rail motor

Year of the Horse

It's a new lunar year, and apparently we're now into the Year of the Horse.   I see that the Chinese New Year usually occurs on the second new moon after the (southern hemisphere) summer solstice (21 December).

A nearby house put up some lanterns, and we received a nice greeting card.

The High Court

At long last, during our recent trip,  I made the obligatory pilgrimage to the High Court in Canberra - or at least, to the building where the court sits.

From the outside, this is a big building, but inside a lot of the space is the atrium.    The guide on duty in one of the courtrooms was honest enough to admit that the colours of the carpets in the various court rooms is very "70s-ish".  My overall impression was that there's a lot of building to support seven people, but I suppose they carry a lot of responsibility so perhaps that justifies their accommodation.

For the record, this is one of the few places in Canberra where there are no restrictions on photography inside (although the Court wasn't sitting when I visited).

Building where the High Court sat in Melbourne before it became based in Canberra - much more modest!

Historical Beechworth

We spent a little time in the historical precinct at Beechworth, including the gaol tour.   This lasted an hour and took us through all the main areas of the former gaol (although we didn't get to climb a guard tower as advertised on the web site).    It was obviously an extremely tough place to be in if you were there in the 19th century, and would still have been a most unpleasant place if you were there as late as 2004 (the year in which it was closed).

Interior of cell - used until 2004

Solitary confinement exercise yard

The tour included a close inspection of the gallows.  The only part missing was an actual demonstration of their operation!     Apart from that, little was left to the imagination.

Not sure if T class locos ever operated mixed trains, but does it matter?

One of the other buildings able to be viewed  was the telegraph office.  In addition to a good display of telegraphic equipment, a model of the Beechworth railway station in the 1950s was on display.

Beechworth and Milawa

Beechworth is a pleasant town with a gold-mining history and modern day tourist industry, capitalising on its reputation for good food as well as on its history.   

There's lots of accommodation available and although we considered staying at a B&B, we finally decided on a motel close to the centre.    For the record, we were pleased with our choice:   although any motel is just a motel, the room was a just little larger than your average motel room (with a "cathedral" ceiling which added to the feeling of relative spaciousness) and the outlook was on to the leafy elms in the side street.   There was a coffee machine (the type that uses pods) in the room (a bit wasted on us, but a nice note!) and our car windscreen was cleaned.  Importantly, the air-conditioning was effective!

Post Office - still in use

On the first night we ate quite well at one of the hotels, but the second night presented challenges  In fact, we counted four restaurants (all in Good Food Guide, one having two hats) and a micro brewery (also in Good Food Guide) that we might have considered, but one was on a break of several weeks.  

Two of the others and the micro brewery weren't scheduled to open on Wednesdays, and the one remaining restaurant decided to have an unscheduled the night off!   Of the four pubs in town, we ruled two out on the basis that we weren't a local, and of the others, we'd eaten at what we now know was the best pub in town, so we ended up with an adequate but not brilliant dinner at the remaining pub.

Moral of the story:   if you're coming to Beechworth for fine dining, a bit of planning may be required!
 

Lunch at Brown Bros

We went to Brown Bros at Milawa during the day, and had a very satisfactory casual lunch, followed by coffee at one of the other Milawa "fine food" establishments.

Beechworth historical precinct

Elm lined streets in Beechworth

The Alpine Way

We drove from Cooma to Beechworth via the Alpine Way.    It follows the valley from Jindabyne to Thredbo and then continues climbing to Dead Horse Gap (which is on the Great Divide).    From here, there's a steep descent to Tom Groggin, which is right on the River Murray (so you are just across the rapids from Victoria), before turning north towards Khancoban.   On the way, there's Scammell's Ridge lookout and the iconic view of Murray 1 power station.    After lunch at  Khancoban, our route took us across the Murray to Corryong, then along the Murray Valley Highway to Tallangatta before diverting to Yackadandah and finishing up at Beechworth.

View from Dead Horse Gap

The Alpine Way is now sealed for the entire distance, although I understand that it's liable to be closed in winter.    There's a $16 National parks charge paid on the road into Thredbo (not sure if or how this is collected if you travel in the other direction).

Thredbo is a typical ski resort, but even though it was mid-summer, we managed to get coffee there.   The central part of Khancoban appears to be what you get when you let an engineer design a town:   basically, a series of rectangles!

Murray 1 Power Station

Many dead trees, but they're re-growing

View from Thredbo

River at Tom Groggin

View from Scammell's Ridge lookout

Cooma

Our last morning in Canberra was spent commemorating Savindan (literally, "St Sava's Day") (St Sava was the first Serbian archbishop) and then we drove to Cooma where we spent a night on our meandering trip home from Canberra.

 

I suppose I've driven through Cooma a couple of times over the years, but to the best of my recollection, I've never paused in the town.

It's clearly the gateway to the snowfields and the Snowy scheme.   But apart from that, it's, well, a country town!   The Snowy scheme is commemorated by a relief map of the area and a row of flags representing the countries from which workers on the scheme originated (including the flag of former Yugoslavia, but not of the successor countries - understandable, I suppose).

We by-passed the Services club and the Indian and Chinese restaurants for dinner and ate at a Lebanese restaurant.   It was quite good actually:   nice food, white cloth tablecloths and so on.   However, our bill doubled up on several of our items.    I guess we'll give them the benefit of the doubt and accept the explanation that it was a "computer glitch".

The National Library

I had never been to the National Library and, in fact, was only vaguely aware of its existence.  But I was given a ticket (thanks, A) to a guided tour of the current temporary exhibition, "Mapping Our World - Terra Incognito to Australia".  This is an impressive display of maps starting with some indigenous material and a Ptolemy map from about 90 AD (rediscovered in about 1300), and the amazing Venetian map by Fra Mauro. This is perhaps the highlight of the exhibition, given the size of the map and the complexities involved in bringing it from Venice to Canberra.

The exhibition then proceeds through the "discovery" era maps of the Portuguese, Dutch and of course Cook and the other English explorers and culminating in Flinders' "General Chart of Terra Australis or Australia".     All very interesting indeed.

There's also a permanent exhibition in the "Treasures Gallery", which contains a display of maps, pictures, photographs and objects designed to illustrate episodes in Australian history.   Again, the range of material on display is quite breath-taking.

As for the library itself, sorry, no bookstacks at all!    I guess they must exist somewhere but seemingly are not for public access.    There are various reading  rooms (complete with arrays of computer terminals, as well as people reading hard copies).  There are also some Leonard French windows - quite nice but not as impressive as the ceiling in Melbourne's National Gallery.

Edit:   As we were leaving Canberra, I noticed a warehouse-type building with a National Library sign on it.    Maybe the bookstacks are out in a warehouse, instead of on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin!

The National Portrait Gallery

I've previously blogged with my thoughts about the National Portrait Gallery.    As I stated in that post, I quite like this Gallery.  In particular, a reasonable proportion of the art is relatively conservative. Ar least, that is, until you get into the "Australia Now" room.

I revisited the gallery when in Canberra and confirmed my belief that I don't really like the Princess Mary portrait, even though it still has a very prominent position.   And this time there was even a religious portrait (mind you, just one, at least so far as I could see), being Bishop Burgman. Even this work (on loan, and there because Judy Cassab's work was being highlighted) is an "interesting" choice.  I've always thought this secular trait in this Gallery suggests a particular "take" on its claim to select portraits of Australians who have been "significant in the field of endeavour".    For example, Eddie Mabo, Clarles Perkins, Neville Bonner and Harold Blair are all there, side by side.   And the Gallery has managed to obtain photographs of Lee-Lin Chin and Tim Winton.


Anyway, Whitlam and Kerr still hang side-by-side.   Menzies and Evatt are separated by two other portraits,  both politicians (one Liberal, one Labor).

There was a special display of Elvis Presley photos, but I didn't have a lot of time so decided not to pay the charge to enter this section.

[Edited 26 Jan 14]

The Dog on the Tuckerbox

We drove to Canberra.  We were in rain most of the way, sometimes quite light but also heavy at times.    Yet a week ago we were all sweltering.

Impressive vegetation - nice to see

Two things struck me during this boring trip.  First, the trees planted along the highway in Victoria when it was duplicated are now reaching maturity, and so they form quite an impressive array, often for extended sections.   We regularly travel this route, and I suppose I've been aware of the trees, but on this occasion I became even more conscious of them.

The contrast after crossing the border is stark, although of course perhaps there were fewer trees north of the Murray even when the land was in its original state.   There are some plantings, so perhaps things will change as they reach maturity.

The Dog is there, but the shop has closed

Secondly, in the battle at the "Dog on the Tuckerbox" between Shell/KFC vs the more traditional wayside refreshment places there, Shell/KFC have won decisively.   Shell have a more prominent location, slightly closer to the highway than the smaller businesses, and they have now closed.

....and the business on the other side of the access road to the Dog has also closed