Johnblog

Jan and I went to Canberra to see the Turner from the Tate exhibition at the National Gallery. Jan was offered a special package with the Novotel in Canberra because she has a loyalty card with them.

We drove down on Friday afternoon, had a quick drink in the hotel bar and were then bussed off with about 50 other punters to the gallery. There we were greeted with a glass of bubbly and an introductory chat from one of the curators, followed by an exclusive tour of the art. The Gallery says:

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775−1851) is acknowledged not only as one of Britain’s most prolific painters, but as one of its greatest.

Very enjoyable. Lovely stuff, old Turner, but they didn’t manage to borrow his most famous works from the Tate – such as The Fighting Temeraire. 

There were canapés and drinks after in the gallery, then it was back to the hotel for dinner. A “British-themed” dinner included beef and Yorkshire pud – but thankfully the spotted dick was a bit more gourmet than my old school dinner version!

The next day we went to Questacon – The National Science and Technology Centre. It was my first visit, but I’ll go again. There are lots of hands-on exhibits for kids and grownups and you can even learn things! I almost learned about the relationship between sine and cosine.

Turn the handle and pointers labelled ‘sin’ and ‘cos’ will automatically work out these trigonometric functions. This elegant mechanical device allows you to physically explore angles as the ratio of lengths of triangles’ legs.

I also joined a queue of kids to experience Free Fall – where you drop from a serious height of 6 metres. It’s like jumping off the roof of a two-storey building but with a better outcome. I donned the provided overalls, climbed the stairs to the top and waited my turn. You have to sit on a ledge, then grab a bar and suspend yourself over the vertical drop. That’s quite scary when you look down. The freefall is just for a fraction of a second before you hit the curve of the slide and gradually come to a halt. Jan took an iPhone video:

I even did it again just to prove I was as brave as the kids! Questacon is a fantastic place, love it.

Then we went for a more serious subject – we toured the War Memorial’s exhibition of photos of World War I soldiers called Remember Me, the lost Diggers of Vignacourt. These photos are from glass negatives uncovered in 2011 after sitting undisturbed for nearly a century in the attic of a farmhouse in the French town of Vignacourt. They were taken there by the local photographer who made prints for soldiers to send back home as postcards.

The photos are wonderful and very moving when you realise that most of the subjects never made it back home. I couldn’t leave without another look at the memorial’s aircraft, including the famed Lancaster bomber exhibit, G for George.

That evening we met up with our Canberra friends Chris and Ray Sloan for a lovely meal at Pulp Kitchen, a “casual European Brasserie”, with some great food. This was followed by a couple of pints of delicious English-style beer at the Wig and Pen real ale pub.

We had a lovely time in Canberra with one unusual twist. As we drove away from the memorial we saw a parked ranger vehicle, then we saw the ranger shoot and kill a kangaroo. Our Canberra friends told us it had probably been injured by a car and the ranger was finishing it off.