Making a Mint in Canberra

I paid a visit to the Royal Australian Mint when I was last down in Canberra in September, to learn a bit about how all of those coins that slip through my hands on a daily basis are made.

The entrance to the Royal Australian Mint

When I stepped through the entrance to the mint, I was greeted with a dome containing what looked like an overflowing pot of gold.
Something like I would have expected to find at the end of a rainbow, like the one I photographed up in Byron Bay the day I saw Magda Szubanski and bought her book -
Magda Szubanski, Rainbows, The 2016 Byron Bay Writers Festival, Jung and Synchronicity

It was a double rainbow as well that I saw from my car:-)

Or maybe those coins were just the contents of an exploded poker machine?-)

Poker machines in the German Club in Canberra

The Canberra Raiders/The Radiators?-)

House of cards? 
Poker Money?-)

I'm always chasing rainbows in this life it seems ... and that pot of gold that's rumoured to be at the end of it.

I noticed all the flowers that the mint had on display, which were for promoting Canberra's annual flower show, which I had attended the day before and wrote about here -
A Black Swan Event in Canberra

I was kinda hoping to pick up a money tree that I could take home and plant in my own garden, but the mint made it quite clear with the signs on the walls that they weren't giving it away.

Even the mint's "stairway to heaven" to the observation deck was only filled with five cent coins:-)
I had flashbacks to another "stairway to heaven" I had climbed in Tasmania earlier that year -

 Hit Me with Your Best Shot

A "stairway to heaven" made with
five cent pieces? Cheapskates!

I found the MINT coloured lines
on the factory floor amusing:-)

There was a machine named the Titan, which was basically a big mechanical arm that would lift barrels of blanks (I think) and pour them onto the production line. 

I'm wondering if the forklift drivers make a mint,
as I have a forklift license:-)

Pieces of eight? 8+8=16? 16 16? 1591? 1+5+9+1=16;-) 2016?

I was down in Canberra at the time between just having seen my team the Sharks beat the Cowboys in the NRL semi-final in Sydney and was now I was waiting in Canberra, visiting my son and was going back to Sydney's Olympic stadium to watch the Sharks hopefully win their first ever NRL grand final.

I had never been to the Olympic stadium in my life before.

But it is officially called ANZ stadium in Oz, because a bank has the naming rights to the Olympic Stadium ... money talks.

The medals for the 2000 Olympic Games
 held in Sydney were minted here

Cathy Freeman is a Sharks supporter

Cathy Freeman climbs the stairway to heaven?-)

The opening of the 2000
Olympic Games in Sydney

I was starting to see personal signs on this observation deck that this may just be the Sharks year.
Cathy Freeman became the Olympic champion for the women's 400 metres at the 2000 Summer Olympics, at which she lit the Olympic Flame and she is a Cronulla Sharks supporter, too, so to see those Olympic medals on the wall of the place that minted them was giving me goose bumps to think that the first time I've ever been to the Olympic stadium I might see my team win their first ever NRL grand final.  

Hmm ... finding NEMO/OMENs?

An owl on the floor of the mint
 keeping an eye on me?-)

The machine at the mint you put 3 dollars
 in to get 1 dollar back ... hmm

On the ground floor of the mint opposite the shop is a machine that you place three dollars' worth of coin in to get back a brand new one dollar coin that you can say you minted yourself.
Now isn't that an apt metaphor for modern banking?-) 

The coin I minted on the day
at the mint in Canberra

Of course, I couldn't resist the idea of minting my own coin and placed two $2 coins in the machine ... and guess what?
The bloody coin machine doesn't give change back if you put in the wrong amount, so ironically, I got ripped off one dollar.

The other side of the coin I minted that day

I also bought this '2017: Year of the Rooster' coin pictured below from the mint's shop.

I thought seeing this rooster coin for sale in the mint's celebration '50th year of decimal currency' in the Year of the Monkey was another good sign for the Sharks for their fiftieth-year celebrations in 2017, because we were forced to play our "home" semi-final at the Rooster's home ground, because the NRL deemed our real home-ground at Cronulla too small to hold a semi-final there.
Shark Week in the Year of the Monkey

I also bought a little bottle of gold flakes from the mint shop, as next year will be the Sharks golden anniversary and if you buy shark at a fish and chip shop in Australia you ask for Flake:-)

Plus, my life path number is 7 and on the bar code of the gold bottle is a 007.

Oddly enough, my son took me to a movie the same day I visited the mint in in Canberra, that I didn't really want to see, but it was his pick -
2017: What Comes First, the Chicken, the Egg ... or the Monkey?

9/23/16?

And by the way, that date on that movie poster above is my birthday and the night that I saw my team the Sharks beat the COWBOYS and go into the grand final against the Melbourne Storm (who beat Canberra in the other semi-final) in Sydney at the Olympic Stadium ... sorry I mean ANZ Stadium.

Egg and lettuce sandwiches,
  mint cake with kool mint

I realized that on my birthday I got to have my cake and eat it too. 
And that day at the mint cafe in Canberra I got the last mint cake and had egg (2017: Year of the Rooster ... or Shark again?-) and lettuce sandwiches and a black coffee.

Mmm ... mint cake and Kool mint

It's ironic that I stopped in Newcastle on the way down to Sydney and Newcastle's slogan is "See Change"...

New Castle? See Change?

But if you really want to see change ... and not get much back ... head to Canberra and the Royal Australian Mint.

"The Green Machine" lost their semi-final
to the Melbourne Storm September 24th

Are Canberra called "The Green Machine" because
the Royal Australian Mint is housed there?

I thought it was a shame that Cronulla and Canberra couldn't have both made the NRL grand final, as it would been an interesting game, but as we Sharks fans always used to say, "there's always next year".

But let's flip for it shall we?

The coin I minted in Canberra,
September 29th, 2016

Double or nothing?
Life's a gamble ... isn't it?-)

Fan Day at the Sydney Opera House September 29th, 2016:-)

And it's not over until the fat lady sings, or so they say.

Life Path Number 7?-)

I just hope that the sharks haven't jumped the shark ... so to speak;-)

Black, white and blue?
The Fonz a Shark fan, too?-)

Go the Sharkies again in 2017!!!