Despite the fact the thermometer was near -4 degrees this morning, the caravan plumbing had not frozen up; perhaps that had something to do with the cunning plan we have been operating over the past few days. Whenever we get up in the night to attend to the call of nature, we turn the tap on until the water in the relative warmth of the ground has come through. This fairly regularly exercised flow seems to keep the ice at bay. There is a positive to getting old after all!
We had a list of attractions yet to be visited; Royal Australian Mint,
National Archives of Australia, Australian Institute of Sport and the Bradman
Museum of Cricket. We checked out the cost of each of these, finding the last
two were not free. I was not mad about either of them and suggested that I take
a good book while Chris indulge himself or rather immerse himself in one of his
favourite pastimes; an interest in sport. Checking on the address of the
Bradman Museum, I discovered that it was situated in Bowral, way to the east
and not too far off our planned route to Sydney, not Canberra at all, despite
the fact we had picked up the brochure in the Canberra Information Centre.
We decided to head for the Mint, and then see what followed. As we
crossed Lake Burley Griffin, the ornamental trees with their deep red brown
leaves were perfectly reflected in the waters. Such scenes help one forgive the
sub-zero temperatures. Such scenes belong to autumn.
Surprisingly we managed to fill nearly two hours at the Royal Australian
Mint. The Mint is situated in the suburb of Deacon at an unnumbered address. It
superseded the mints in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, opening in 1965, just in
time to produce the new coinage for the changeover to decimal coinage in
February 1966.
The Mint here in Canberra serves primarily to manufacture Australia’s
legal coin currency. Note currency is still manufactured in Melbourne. The Mint
here also produces medals for both military and civilian honours, as well as
tokens for commercial organisations such as casinos, car washes, et cetera.
Coins have also been manufactured for several Asian and South Pacific nations
including New Zealand. Forty four gallon drums full of coins ready for striking
for the Solomon Islands stood on the floor as evidence of the varied
commissions the Mint receives.
Naturally security is tight for staff but for us who were kept in
visitor areas behind great glass windows, not so. The interpretative panels and
exhibits of failed strikes, the shop full of uncirculated collection coins and
other tourist paraphernalia, all caught our attention.
It was interesting to learn that the bronze medals produced for the 2000
Olympic Games were made from recycled one and two cents taken out of
circulation. We also learned that the old coins to be replaced with freshly
minted ones are taken under guard to an undisclosed destination in Queensland
and smelted down, to be returned for recycling.
Robots and automated machinery do much of the work, staff having been
replaced for the altruistic purpose of reducing pollution from the diesel powered
forklifts and other machinery. Whatever happened to machinery driven by electricity?
I am sure that the robots do not complain about the working conditions
or threaten strikes or request maternity leave. Titan, one of these treasures,
is touted to be one of the strongest robot in the world, can lift 1000 kg.
Today as he lifted a drum of coins weighing 750 kg, he bowed as he is programmed
to do, but was not worthy of applause; he had carelessly spilt a number of the coins
onto the floor.
I learned from one of the new guides, an ex-teacher now engaged to take
the school tours through the Mint, that Year 6 school children, aged about 12
or 13, from all over Australia are encouraged to visit Canberra, to take in the
War Memorial, the Parliament, the Museum and one other, which generally
includes the Institute of Sport or the Royal Australian Mint. There are
apparently financial carrots handed out to schools or the pupils (I am not sure
which) for them to do so. The level of funding obviously is reflected in the
distance from the county’s capital. This accounts for the many
hundreds of school children we have encountered as we have toured about these
places of interest ourselves.
After leaving the Mint, we stopped at Yarralumla Bay and walked across
the parkland crunching the dead leaves and acorns beneath our feet to a table
on the lakeside, where we ate our lunch in the company of a large crow and the
inevitable magpies.
After discussing the National Archives centre and finding that neither
of us felt it was a must-do, we headed for the Canberra Museum & Gallery
back across the lake in the centre of the city.
The Canberra Museum & Gallery is not that easy to find but is worth
the bother. There is a small gallery with exhibitions celebrating the social
history of the city since its establishment and in the ACT area before then. It
was interesting to learn here that the Territory border which zigzags in a
rather weird shape about the city, sometimes quite distant and others hugging
the edge, was established to encompass the water catchment of the Cotter River
which rises in the Tidbinilla Ranges in the west.
There was also an exhibit containing maps and tourist information from
the very early 1970s. This was when Chris was here and it would have been
interesting to compare it all with the mass of literature we picked up from the
Information Centre on arrival.
The Gallery section of this attraction incorporates a collection of
Sidney Nolan’s artwork, donated by the artist himself to ensure his fame, I am
sure. It was no surprise that there was yet another series about Ned Kelly, a
few from his Burke & Wills collection, some inspired from Marcus Clark’s The Term of His Natural Life and a
collection inspired from his relationship with Rimbaud, Verlaine and Verlaine’s
wife, in which I found nothing to like . The only paintings I actually liked
were from none of these, but a couple of paintings of birds and a couple of a
dead cattle carcass. What does this say about me? Goodness knows!
There was also a delightful exhibition of illustrations from children’s
books titled Look! The Art of Australian Picture
Books Today and another titles Mirror
by Jeannie Baker; both worth the fuss of searching for a park and hunting down
the gallery.
Back at camp we found the ebb and flow of occupancy was on the rise.
There are several campers who have been here longer than us so must be
nearing the end of their twenty eight day allowance. We may even beat them out
of here. Two more nights and we will be gone.
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