Last days on the road.

Our time in Canberra, and our time on the road, was coming to an end. In addition to seeing the glassworks and checking out the wonderful markets nearby, we managed to catch up with some friends of Duncan's.

Greg, Crystal and little Charlotte had moved to Canberra just after Charlotte was born, and it was lovely to see them again. The kids had fun playing with little Charlotte while we all caught up and then we all went for a walk through the bush (which is never far from anywhere in Canberra) and down to a fab little river beach. Both Angus and Charlotte were wet and filthy before too long!

And then the next day we were off. On our way, homeward bound to Melbourne. We zoomed right through New South Wales, with only a stop at the good old Dog on the Tuckerbox for one last family pic. And some yummy apples.

We continued zooming (as much as Bertha can zoom...) through to a suitable rest area just past Glenrowan. Being so far south, we didn't need power for air conditioning, and we had a lovely quiet night with just the four of us. A very low key end to our massive trip. Which was just as well, as we got some very sad news as we were pulling up. One of our oldest friends wasn't well and we had arranged to spend some time with him in hospital as soon as we got back. Unfortunately we never made it to our reunion as Marck passed away on our final day on the road. We had a simple meal and raised a glass to a dear friend on our last evening.

The next day we were off at a reasonable hour, and keen to see the familiar city skyline.

We had booked a spot at the Wantirna Caravan Park for a few weeks, not knowing what or where we would be living in the future. Bertha fit perfectly in her spot, and the paving on our site couldn't have been laid any better. It was meant to be!

We wasted no time (really, it doesn't take us long to settle into a site these days!) and were off in Baby Bertha to pop in and visit our darling cats at their foster home and call in to see my Dad for his birthday.

Mum and Dad had arranged a BBQ for Dunc's mum and all of my family as Richard was over from the UK and we had pretty much this one single night of crossover time. And, of course, it was Dad's birthday! The kids caught up with their 2nd cousins and we caught up with everyone and it was just wonderful to see everyone again.

And after all the festivities, we returned home to Bertha - in the Wantirna Caravan Park! LOL.

Ending on a high note.

One of our last days on the road was spent at the Canberra Glassworks. I’d gone with a group of Art teachers on a conference 15 months earlier and had been jealous of the teachers who had been able to do the practical glass-making activity.

I ‘saved’ that activity for when I would be here with the kids, and that day had FINALLY arrived. I chose to make a paperweight and had an absolute BALL doing so. First I got to choose the colours that would go into the glass. I chose blue, green and white in the hope that the end product would look like the sea. My instructor Sui was fabulous and I was pleased he approved of my choices.

Then we got some molten glass on the end of a rod and rolled it into the coloured powders.

I chose to go 'freeform' rather than structured, which meant I had to pinch and pull the glass to create waves and holes, which would start to create the bubbles in the end product. It was also lots of fun!

After the pinching and twisting, we added more glass on top, which trapped the air in the pinches and made those bubbles.

Then the big blob of glass had to be guided into shape. I had to spin it and roll is along to cool a bit before using a wooden mould to make it a proper round shape.

The final step was pinching hard to create the neck for the base, and then Sui took over to flatten the stand on the cool metal table. I was surprised to hear that the glass needed to aneal in a kiln and cool down slowly over 3 days to prevent it from shattering and being incredibly fragile. This meant that it had to be posted 'home' to Melbourne. The magic of the internet and the fact that I'm writing this EIGHT months later means that I can put a pic of the end product in!

I think I managed to achieve my objective of making it look like the sea, don't you??!

Canberra Capers Continue

With a week allocated for Canberra, we still had a fair bit of time left to explore the capital a little more. We headed back to the Art Gallery, but turned left instead of right and spent a lovely morning exploring the National Portrait Gallery. Lexie loved the interactive “Dress Up as a Portrait” section while Dunc and Angus took the opportunity to relax.

We also checked out the Australian War Memorial and spent the afternoon very moved by the exhibitions there. I loved the section on artists and was very enthralled with the exhibition of Ben Quilty’s portraits. I sat and watched the entire Australian Story episode on him (and his subjects) that was screening in the exhibition. Unfortunately we didn’t discover the children’s corner until right before the ceremony of the laying of the wreath, so we only had time to rush through that bit too quickly.

The next day we headed to the Royal Australian Mint, where we realized how much we had learnt at the previous mint! We still had lots to learn here though, and the interactive exhibits were enjoyed by all. I’m sure they were designed for kids, but Dunc still got his fun worth! It was truly fascinating watching the enormous robot named Titan move around and do ‘his’ job.

Lexie was getting excited about heading home to Melbourne and started counting down the days – yay!