I was left to myself this morning while Caleb and Ray went to use the toilet at the park next door. When they took a little longer than expected (45minutes) I told myself that it wasn’t so that I could do the packing up on my own, but because Ray must have met someone to talk to, yet again. 
The culprit was actually Caleb. Apparently there was a couple of bus loads of Year 4 girls on their way to a camp that had pulled in for a break. Ray related how Caleb had “held court ” with a semi circle of girls laid out in front of him asking him questions about his trip. He was happily answering questions and talking about where we were going next. They told of some great things to do in Canberra while we are there. 
We hit the road and arrived at our campground 20km from Canberra. It’s in a park and it is a sensational spot. Right on the edge of the Murrumbidgie River. Campfires are provided so the boys scrounged for wood so that we could have a campfire. 
We headed into Canberra knowing that we had so much to see over a couple of days and we would probably run out of time. 
Canberra is so business like. The buildings are all concrete and “straight laced” and the fashion is very much suits and corporate wear. We even discovered that our usual attire of shorts and thongs was underdressed amongst the crowds of tourists. Even Ray noticed it. 
Parliament House didn’t impress Caleb. We kept telling him that he was in the place where all the rules for Australia are made. We took a look at the portraits of the past Prime Ministers which lined the foyer between the Senate and the House of Representatives. When we stopped at the one of John Howard I asked him if he knew who he was (he had been on TV not so long ago). Caleb immediately replied, “Yep, that’s him over there”. I turned around and sure enough the security guard seated behind the desk was a dead ringer for him! Well, he is observant.
We lined up to watch question time in the House Of Representatives. This took quite a while but eventually we were able to see what goes on. Caleb spotted some politicians straight away that he has seen on the news recently.
A few things really surprised me. I think that you get a real essence of the people running the country if you do go and watch. I was disappointed overall and wondered why we teach kids respect for others, listening skills and polite behavior when our leaders display none. There were a lot of school groups there and I wondered how those teachers were dealing with the questions and comments from the kids when what they were seeing was (I thought) a display in the height of rudeness. Ok, now off my soapbox! 
We went from here to the war memorial which is directly opposite, the long avenue between them reminding us of the Champs de Élysées in Paris. We got there just before closing (typical) but this meant that we were able to see the daily closing ceremony. It was well worth watching. A tidy display of routine, rigor and respect as performed by members of the army, navy and air force. (Perhaps the neighbors at the other end of the avenue should pop up for a look see and to learn a thing or two!)
We knew we would have to return tomorrow to look through the vast building. 
Caleb did get to meet a real sailor and ask him numerous questions, nearly all were about his gun and the bullets. I didn’t realise Caleb knew so much about them, I was shocked. 
We returned to the van and the boys made a campfire. We counted our blessings as we sucked in the beautiful fresh air and warmed our toes by the fire. It was perfection.