First thing yesterday we visited the 31st annual Australian Beer Can Collector’s Cannathon! This was at Broadmeadow Basketball Stadium, and was a convention of guys that collect beer cans. For me, this was a group of otaku and I felt their otaku spirit. Ganbare can collecting old dudes!
Intriguingly, these guys don’t just collect beer cans, they collect aluminium cans of any type of drink and from any country. I spotted (and photographed) a striking set of two Korean cans emblazoned with beautiful character art promoting the CCG Aion. And the collector was about 60 years old 🙂
Yesterdays goal was the Convent Of Mercy in Singleton, about 90 minutes northwest of Newcastle. My mother was a nun there for the 5 years following her 16th birthday, and neither my brother nor I had ever been there. So this was a first, and I was really looking forward to it.
Singleton is a country town, on the border of ‘the outback’, and yesterday was a real scorcher of a day to be driving inland:
< 111 Fahrenheit
We arrived early and had a quick lunch…
And Bernard shook off some of the heat in the typical way:
< He didn’t win
We arrived at the convent in the early afternoon. Here’s what it looks like from the front:
When mum was there this place housed over a hundred nuns, but now there are only nine and much of the complex is unused. We were greeted by an elderly but pleasant nun who gave us a quick tour of the interior.
The rooms are massive and the ceilings extremely high (16 feet). There are many beautiful stained-glass windows as well as intricate crown-molding, flooring and woodwork. But it all seems very empty now, and evokes an earlier era.
The chapel was particularly beautiful.
Mum’s sitting in the seat she was assigned so many years ago as a junior nun.
It was brutally, brutally hot yesterday, into the 40s up in Singleton. The interior of the convent was cool, but even stepping out into the sun for a few seconds was punishing. Happily our car had a powerful and effective air conditioner!
Before today’s final comment, here’s a shot of Bernard sucking a banana.
As for the Lift, yesterday wasn’t so bad. Two cans, one 450 mL bottle and a drink at a pub was all I had, bringing the total to… 27.2 L