Saturday

[xenith]

The handy thing about first thing Saturday morning is there is less traffic on the road to get in my photos :)




Waiting at the bus stop.




I caught the bus up to the hill to take photos of Parliament House. I discovered the first thing Saturday morning thing worked up here too. Hardly any traffic and few people.



Also very blue sky.


Looking down to the War Memorial. I'm going to walk down the hill (not over to the Memorial obviously, there's a lake in the way), past Old Parliament House, to the National Library where I am meeting Di. Also, I want to have another look around the map exhibition.



Although time for a couple more photos first




That photo might need a second look :) I make a slight detour on the way to check how long it takes for walk from the bus stop for the Queanbeyan bus to the library. I intend to catch the Centenary bus back into the city and get the Queanbeyan bus from there, but if I get caught up at the library, I can leave later and catch a bus from out here. There's one every hour.



Not the Treasury building. Definitely not.




At the library, the map exhibition is very cool. They have a copy of the oldest known map of the world (the original is too fragile to carry). There was this big blue wall-sized map facing the door but that wasn't as interesting. There was a room of Dutch maps, showing the progress of European discovered of the southern land/s. It wasn't all maps. Display cases in the middle of the rooms had objects, like artefacts from Batavia, the shipwreck not the place, which were interesting. When the wreck occurred, the nearby coast (of what's now Western Australia) was known to the Dutch navigators. There were weird clocks and other early navigation intrustments but I didn't really have time to look at them. The last room, of mostly 19th century maps, had many familiar names (Flinders, Baudin). Much going back and forth was required to compare things (e.g. an 1811 chart of VDL in a case showed Tasmans Peninsula as an island, but earlier maps have it as a peninsula). Very cool exhibition. I wish I'd had more time for it.

I then had a quick look around the library's Treasures Gallery. Unlike the usual museum exhibition, or even the map exhibition, where there are themes connecting the objects on display, the Treasure Gallery is display of the cool stuff from the library's collection. Then another quick look through the bookshop, in case I missed something last time. I did walk through the actual books this time, and saw one I wanted. I did look at it muchly, and then went back to the cafe to think about whether I could justify buying it and then carry around all day. I was saved from deciding by Di turning up. We bought drinks, well she did for both of us, and we sat and talked (and she did origami, including a rather cool origami equivalent of Rubik's snake). The time when I intended to catch the Centenary bus back to the city came, but we were a bit behind schedule. Then time to the catch the Qn bus near the library passed. Then the time to catch the Centenary bus back to catch the next Qn bus passed. As the time came for me to leave to catch the Qn bus nearby, I finally had to go, or would never have got there.

I won't mention the drama in actually finding the bus stop I wanted. I'll just say, why do bus companies find it so hard to put up signs saying "Catch this bus here" or something. *sigh* On the plus side, it only cost me $2.50 for a day ticket. I had to check with the driver that it was actually a day ticket.



Arriving at Queanbeyan, this is the first thing I saw.


On my first sight of the place (actually the previous morning, on the bus to Braidwood), I thought it looked like suburban Launceston. (As in, I glanced from what I was looking at, and wondered where I was for a moment. Weird.) But on seeing more, I think it's more like Devonport. Maybe both mixed together, but inland more and less postcards.









Had to be quick to get that :)



Destination: Queanbeyan museum, in the former police sergeant's house (when I found out that, I had to visit).



The main (front) building has six rooms full of little displays, which have been tied to the local area in some way.



Some because the collections came from local businesses or tradesman.



Or they relate to the history of the area (gold mining here).



Or the function of the house.








Then a walkway leads to another building out the back which was the kitchen block (two kitchens for the two front residences) which was later offices, I think. I can't find that anywhere.






A room off here has a wooden iron lung, but I put the photos on 432 instead. A lot of photos to put up there, but I'm slowly working through them.



Then outside to look at more displays




Including a rather cool mural of the town in the old days.

As local/community history museums go, it was rather fun (and useful). For my purposes, certainly worth visiting. (As way to fill in a Saturday afternoon, worth a visit too.)


Next stop is just down the road, to a printing museum. Ihave some doubts about whether I actually want to bother going in, but then, I have nothing else to do.


It's a small room, well 3 rooms, full of large equipment and a guide who is happy to make up for a lack of any brochures by giving a talk and demonstration of all the equipment.





Drawer of type.



The dark room for the newspaper's photographer. (The Queanbeyan Age was where the printing equipment came from.)




The tour was rather fun, so I'm glad I went in. Although the lack of an postcards or anything like that was disappointing. They could print their own!



With time before I had to head back, I wandered around and took some more photos, including this building across the road from the museums.




An odd homewares/discount shop that seemed to subscribe to the idea that more is better. I would assume they cater to catering places or something. Or maybe they just like to buy in bulk.



I also had some hope of finding a place selling postcards, but was unlucky there.







The Royal Hotel dominates the townscape.



I did make it down to the river, but not beyond. My feet and my enthusiasm didn't stretch that far :)





Waiting for the bus.


On the trip back, I had reports of wild weather in Launceston via Facebook and Sydney via bus radio. Here, old clouds is as interesting as it gets.



Photos from bus :)







Back in the city, one last thing to do tonight. There's a park just up the road from the YHA that I keep walking past so I went in for a look.







Statue of Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi, as you'd expect.



The casino is just behind the park.



On the way back to the hostel, I went past these, um, these.

Back in the room, I sort out my bag and pack everything ready to leave the next morning. And go to bed early.

Except, of course, the fire alarm goes off at 2 am.