I've left the best till last

Heaps more photos today and then I will probably be quiet for quite a while!

 I met up with my friend Doreen in Canberra.  We see each other whenever I go to Canberra.  This time the Embroiderer's guild was holding its annual exhibition, which had some beautiful exhibits.  Unfortunately photography was not allowed, but check out Doreen's blog, she has photos of lots of the exhibits taken before the show opened.  Doreen had some beautiful pieces she had made for the exhibition.
We had a hire car and drove from Newcastle to Canberra, via Orange, and we took the scenic route, much nicer than major highways.  The country looked lush and so pretty with rolling hills and green pastures for most of the way - very different country from the tropics.

 This statue of the rotary hoe in Crookwell and the description underneath interested me.

 I was in the back seat for the drive - Bill Drove and my sister could read the satnav much better than I could (better eyesight)  I spent my time trying to take photos through the window while we were travelling at 100 km per hour - not always very successful.  Nearly all the cattle down there are black angus, looking very healthy.

 The country between Orange and Canberra is top rated Merino sheep country, growing fine wool.  If you click the images should enlarge to give a better view.

 While in Canberra we drove out to the Cotter Dam which Bill and I had visited on our honeymoon - a long time ago.  The river and park looks lovely now, but when we visited on our honeymoon, it was very hot, full of flies and so droughty there was hardly anything to see!  I was not impressed that day.

 These photos are out of order.  Barb and I went to visit the Syd Long Spirit of the Land exhibition at the National Art Gallery.  He was an Australian painter with wonderful Art Nouveau paintings from the 1890s and 1900s - no photography allowed of course.  There were some lovely paintings of brolgas dancing and also flamingo paintings.  I really hope the photo above enlarges so you can see the fascinating orb apparently floating in mid air!  The gallery building is very impressive, then we walked across to the nearby National Portrait Gallery, also a magnificent building.  The biggest drawcard there is the latest portrait of the Queen, a Diamond Jubilee portrait by Australian artist Ralph Heimans.  It is very large and very luminous.  He only had a twenty minute sitting with the Queen and did the rest from photos!  I am sure if you google you will see it.  There were many other interesting portraits there as well, some only interesting because of who they were, and some lovely paintings in their own right.

 We drove out to the Deep Space Tracking Station at Tidbinbilla, hoping Bill may be able to walk far enough to see it, but that was definitely not on.  He would have had to walk further than you do at any airport, so I took these  photos of two of the giant telescopes (or radioscopes or whatever their technical name is).  At least we had a very pleasant drive in the countryside.

All in all, we are very glad we went, even though Bill could not join in much.