Parliament House – Old and New

Our last day in Canberra, we chose Parliament House, beginning the day with Old Parliament House, which has been converted to a museum.



Lego Lover has a slight interest in politics; he was quite excited to be visiting.



The children were each given a colourful interactive folder to work through as they wandered the floors. It required them to look for clues, by finding certain display items.
Here we stopped to make Federation Lanterns.



Speaker for a minute. He takes his role very seriously!



We thought the media room was probably the most exciting place to be!



The museum has dedicated an entire area for children to explore and create in. This particular wall adorned with listening pipes is all about having your message heard.



Further into the space are large wooden trees that many children before us have written their messages on.



As you continue through the space you enter the Make It Take It area. Today it didn’t house anything political, simply origami frogs.



A small area for dressing up in was wholeheartedly embraced by Fairy Princess. The Queen her favourite role!



But then again, finding a lump of gold that size is pretty impressive.

It was a pleasure to visit here. All of our children were made to feel welcome and each of them enjoyed their visit and they all learned a little more about Australian Politics.



We headed on over to new Parliament House, what a vast difference. The foyer is adorned in marble from floor to ceiling. Definitely one impressive place to see, especially the ball room and the amazing tapestry hanging on the back wall.



As this is a working building, visitors are free to wander the halls, but there isn’t a great deal for the kids to really sink their teeth in here.

Their highlight was heading to the rooftop and looking Canberra and getting just the bit closer to the flag that.

National Dinosaur Museum

The Dinosaur Museum is just a few metres down the road from Cockington Green Gardens. We really had no idea what to expect from this place. After all, giving themselves the name ‘National’ is setting up pretty high expectations!



Yet again we were very pleasantly impressed, in fact up to now we have not been disappointed in anything we’ve visited in Canberra.




Several large models adorn the outer walls around the entire length of the museum.





Opposite the dinosaur displays is a showcase of one massive timeline of artifacts, information, photographs and more. The museum has certainly acquired a great range of items for display.



Some of the dinosaurs are set with a motion sensor, scaring the bejeezers out of you as you walk on by, with their roaring and movement.



Downstairs is the children’s play area come exploration zone.



Little Surfer Dude loved inspecting specimens more closely with this gigantic microscope.




Lego Lover got busy with these large 3D puzzles, lots of pieces, all needed to be placed in the correct order.






Outside in the gardens are even more dinosaur models. Here the kids can touch and get up real close.





Definitely a great local resource for any dinosaur lover.

Entry Fee: $38.00 for a family
Parking: Good
Time To Allow: 1 – 2 hours

Cockington Green Gardens

A short drive north of Canberra is the township of Nicholls, home to Cockington Green Gardens.



Superbly manicured, with a front lawn any lawn loving gardener would envy, you can tell these gardens are tended with loving care.



Miniature steam train rides circuit the gardens, a fun way for the kids to see a good overview of the area.



The newer area is home to international structures from all over the world.



The original gardens are based on buildings from all over England.



Of course what’s a garden without an area for our beloved fairy folk!



Stonehenge……fabulous!!



Lego Lover was pretty chuffed to see Darth Vader make an appearance.



Oh no, the bridge is falling!



Fairy Princess’ favourite structure.



Cliff Railway and it really works too. The gardeners have made the gardens as interactive as the can with buttons to push on many of the structures.



There are several model trains scattered through the gardens. All of which the kids can play around with.







Whilst we felt the entry fee was a little steep, in comparison to some of the other places we’ve visited, these quaint little gardens were a pleasure to see.

Lego Lover commented on how well designed the whole place was.

They are currently working on an Australian Buildings installation too, that would be pretty cool to see.

Entry Fee: $63.00 for a family (including steam train ride)
Parking: Good
Time To Allow: 2 hours

Australian Institute of Sport

Who isn’t intrigued to see where our elite athletes live and train? Visiting the Institute is by way of a guided tour.



The tour guides are the athletes themselves. Our guide for the morning was a young athletic walker, hoping to see herself representing our country some day soon.



The tour took us to the AIS Sportec room, where various sports were on offer to try out for fun.



Fairy Princess headed straight for the rock climbing poles.



Track your reaction times, how quickly can you get a start.



The sled simulator was by far the favourite sport. Laying on a moveable sled, with a fast paced simulation playing in front of you, wind rushing through your hair it was race to the bottom.



Or how about trying your luck at scoring a goal against one of the Socceroos!



Downhill skiing, another popular sport with the kids.



Cycling proved to be a bit of feat, those bikes are quite large!



After some time in the Sportec space we headed out to see some of the training venues used by the athletes. The gymnastics hall, volleyball centre and the new state of the art swimming and recovery pools to name a few.

Now we know just how our Athletes live and train day in and day out!



Entry Fee: $49.00 for a family
Parking: Good
Time to allow: 90 minutes

CSIRO Discovery

 A massive day of Science today. Questacon this morning and CSIRO Discovery this afternoon.

This is a small showcase of some of the things that the people at CSIRO get up to. It also includes a few hands on, interactive work stations.

If I had to pick between the two I would certainly choose Questacon, but at only $20 for the whole family CSIRO Discovery still offered a couple of pretty cool experiences.

Visitors have the opportunity to watch a 10 minute 3D video which details more about some of what the CSIRO are currently working



Inside what they call, The Lab, were several small activities, like this simple Acids and Bases experiment.



These sorts of things normally freak Little Surfer Dude out but he enjoyed this activity today.



This oversized heart chair was certainly pretty cool!



Here Fairy Princess is extracting DNA from Pea Juice.



The Biodiversity display, working with backyards and the wider environment.



Lego Lover was thrilled to complete this accurately. He is controlling a robotic drilling piece via the controls and the image on the screen.



On the other side (where he cannot see) is the robot he his maneuvering, simulating how this could possibly be used in the mining industry.



Entry Fee: $20 for a family
Time to Allow: 60 – 90 minutes
Parking: Good