When I lived in Canberra, the current Parliament House was being built. I remember touring the old parliament house as a student and as a teacher. I remember when designs were submitted for a new parliament house and when construction began. The photo below is taken from the new looking over the old towards the War Memorial and Mt Ainslie, site of cross country runs when I was in highschool.

Parliament house is now 26 years old and its modern design is very different to the old parliament house opened in 1927 and the Canadian houses of parliament rebuilt and opened in 1926. Today I walked around inside for the first time. It is an amazing building filled with beautiful wood, stone and architectural features.

Above is the members hall featuring marble pillars designed to look like gum trees.

The colours in the senate and house of representatives are the traditional red and green also seen in Britain and Canada but the Australian red is more of a red-ochre and the green a grey-green seen in the plants and rock of the Australian bush.

I didn’t take a photo of the outside but you can see several views on the education site here.

Late afternoon sun catches a little turtle wearing pond weed.

King Parrot, one of several I’ve seen in the back yard in Canberra.

A rainbow lorikeet which would have been perfectly camouflaged if he’d turned his back to me.