Pete at Parliament
Oct. 17th, 2006 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skyringI pulled out the tripod for a big finish. This shows the uniform in light and dark blue, but the big feature is that you can see where the logo comes from. Yes, the distinctive flagpole above Parliament House, its four legs forming a hollow pyramid, and don't they have a lovely time changing the flag!
There's a ricketty little car which climbs up one of the legs and then turns vertical for the last bit. The two workers have to step out onto the tiny platform over the vast drop beneath. Usually performed about three in the morning (which must be a lot of fun in the middle of winter) but a few times each year they change it in the daylight during school holidays and they get all the kids to hold the old flag out horizontally. It's about the size of a double decker bus, and the younger children run around underneath, squealing with excitement.
There are grassy ramps extending all the way up to the top. Pre S11 you could walk up and over Parliament House - in fact farmers have driven flocks of sheep across the top - but there are now security barriers in place. In theory, you could have driven a truck up the ramps and crashed through the glass roof of the central hall.
Not as far-fetched as you might imagine. A little while after the building opened, some nutter lined up his 4WD and drove straight through the front doors, through the foyer, coming to a halt in the middle of the Great Hall, where the Queen had opened the building.
So nowadays there are stout walls and bollards everywhere, and you can't get into the place without you go through a security checkpoint. That's to stop you walking up the roof and lobbing grenades into the courtyard, I guess.
Anyway, the building itself is spectacular. That's a solid cliff of Italian marble forming the facade, and inside it's all Australian wood, inlaid and highly polished.
There's a ricketty little car which climbs up one of the legs and then turns vertical for the last bit. The two workers have to step out onto the tiny platform over the vast drop beneath. Usually performed about three in the morning (which must be a lot of fun in the middle of winter) but a few times each year they change it in the daylight during school holidays and they get all the kids to hold the old flag out horizontally. It's about the size of a double decker bus, and the younger children run around underneath, squealing with excitement.
There are grassy ramps extending all the way up to the top. Pre S11 you could walk up and over Parliament House - in fact farmers have driven flocks of sheep across the top - but there are now security barriers in place. In theory, you could have driven a truck up the ramps and crashed through the glass roof of the central hall.
Not as far-fetched as you might imagine. A little while after the building opened, some nutter lined up his 4WD and drove straight through the front doors, through the foyer, coming to a halt in the middle of the Great Hall, where the Queen had opened the building.
So nowadays there are stout walls and bollards everywhere, and you can't get into the place without you go through a security checkpoint. That's to stop you walking up the roof and lobbing grenades into the courtyard, I guess.
Anyway, the building itself is spectacular. That's a solid cliff of Italian marble forming the facade, and inside it's all Australian wood, inlaid and highly polished.
