Todays little journey was to the War Memorial , we hadn't been for over 20 years , so things are bound to have changed a little . Just as we walked up the steps , we heard a drum and marching - some airforce and army soldiers were there for their Tuesday practice session - presumably getting ready for Anzac Day . They were coming out of the tomb of the unknown soldier , down the steps - one step at a time , with the 2nd foot stamping loudly on the step , before continuing to the next , then marching either side of the water feature , before coming together in pairs and going through the entrance arch . All very impressive !!!
With that finished we headed inside and started looking at the WW1 section , and it all became very sombre - it's still hard to imagine how difficult it must have been for all the soldiers that had to go to war . We looked at one of the displays of Gallipoli and saw the work done by one of the Australian submarines to infiltrate behind enemy lines , go through floating , semi submerged mine fields and create chaos for the enemy ships , until they had problems and surfaced without wanting to - they were shot at and knowing the submarine couldn't continue , the captain scuttled the sub and sank it so the enemy couldn't get their hands on it . They were then captured and held prisoner - of which , 4 men died in custody .
Continuing on , we went to the aviation exhibit - G for George - Lancaster Bomber , Spitfires , Sopwith Camel biplanes , the first jets ( German pilots were either very brave or didn't get a lot of choice )- some had wheels to take off with , then they came off and they had to land on a skid section of the underside of the jet ( the comment was - the germans killed more of their own pilots than the allied forces ).
G for George
Sopwith Camel
We then checked out the Japenese 2 man sub that was caught in Sydney Harbour .
We had been wandering around for over 2 hours and decided that was enough for today , as there were several groups of school kids on excursions and it was getting a bit hectic . The best way to visit here would be to do it over several days , covering one war or period at a time . Before leaving we headed to the tomb of the unknown soldier .
You can say a lot of things about Canberra , but they did organise it very precisely .
It was lunch time , so we headed off to Weston Park for lunch and picked a spot beside the lake . All the parks and gardens are really quite drought affected at the moment , trees are suffering from lack of water .
The decision was made to go for another ride , rather than a paddle , so off to Belconnen and a ride around Lake Ginninderra - about 7 klms ,with an extra 4 klms from a little diversion added . This ride wasn't as nice as the ride around the main lake yesterday , but still a good ride .
Todays activities over , it was back to the RV to retrieve the washing and some cheese & biscuits , yes and a beer !!!
See you tomorrow.
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