Thursday 3 May2012: National Art Gallery, Canberra

Today we visited the National Art Gallery to get ourselves cultured. Lots of beautiful paintings and sculptures. An early colonial artist Eugene Von Guerard had a special exhibition; I enjoyed seeing his historical paintings, which shows what Australia was like before it got changed by white settlers. My favourite painting was a huge one by Brett Whitley…he sure had style and made it look good. We were taken by some beautiful stainless steel sculptures, most couldn't be photographed.

Dave and I were entranced by Albert Namatjura's beautiful watercolour paintings….although others imitated his style, he had the best work! A room is taken up with his work….how a few strokes of paint can make such a beautiful difference. And the other Aboriginal traditional art work in huge bright rooms was so vibrant and captivated me for ages.

Dave reacts negatively to Sidney Nolan's paintings but I enjoyed the room with his Ned Kelly series of paintings….different strokes for different folks!

It was just as well Dave took a walk when I visited the art gallery shop…sheer girlie bliss to browse in my own time…and I bought a postcard of the Blue Poles painting (a big beauty at this National Gallery)plus some nice cards as birthday cards for family. I found Dave outside in the garden sculpture section…yes this was good to see too, though it was freezing cold outside!

Friday 4 May: Canberra National Museum.

Talking of freezing, we woke up in our little igloo to find it was minus 2.5 degrees, and all around our lonely tent was white with icy frost. We have run out of ice in our esky but tonight the esky is out on our trailer, so our milk and other food will be nice and cold! Our cheap little fan heater is our tent saviour inside our igloo!

Today it was off to another free place, the National Museum, which is a stunning new building quite controversial we have heard, because of the design of it. We found ourselves awestruck just walking into this place, and then spent a whole day till closing time browsing various exhibitions, which are arranged around individual stories which are more interesting than just seeing individual objects. My brain is all museumed-out by the end of today, but it was all entrancing stuff. Covers so much of Australian history and present day life. Lots of interactive movies and images and things to handle as well. And plenty of kind and helpful guides if you look lost for a moment, they love showing and telling about the exhibits.

We got back weary, and Dave cooked up yummy butter chicken in the camper's kitchen at the caravan park. The young blokes who are permanent residents here are lovely....most of their meals are pasta based. They think we're special because we're riding motorbikes. One has been in Canberra for 7 months and only just started going to see all the free things around Canberra on Sundays because he's met a girl and taking her there. So sweet is love!