Australian Institute of Sport, Australian War Memorial and the Royal Australian Mint (Snowy Mountains and Canberra Trip)

Tuesday 31 December 2019 – 281 106

First stop today was the A.I.S. – Australian Institute of Sport. 

https://ais.gov.au/visit 

There was some memorabilia on display and a shop, to see anything else you must go on a tour with one of the athletes.  Our tour guide was a young female track runner who had just finished year 12.  She took us around the various training facilities.  She explained that some sports people are fully funded by their national sporting body e.g. Basketball Australia; whereas some other sports the athlete pays to be at the A.I.S. e.g. volleyball.

Lunch was a picnic in Remembrance Park – a beautiful shady park of memorials.  We then spent another hour in the Australian War Memorial, looking at the sections on Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as peacekeeping missions. https://www.awm.gov.au/

Last stop for the day was the Royal Australian Mint. https://www.ramint.gov.au/ We took a tour, which was very informative and saw video footage of the factory in operation. We also looked at displays and saw versions of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Medals.  I learnt that the bronze medals were made from melted down 1c and 2c coins, so they had literally been touched by millions of Australians.

Then back to the van to relax.  After dinner the smell of the smoke suddenly changed and parents all simultaneously appeared to gather their children.  We had three bushfires break out with 5km of us, good to know out instincts still work.