Another early start to get to Canberra. We had to get the train to just outside of Sydney then change to the 6 hour train to Canberra. We bought some cards so spent most of the time messing about with them, lol. We got to Canberra in the evening and went for a bit of an explore and found this ‘English’ style pub that brewed their own beer so we had a few tasters of that. We were about to go to bed that evening when Cat heard a familiar tune from the TV, Local Hero, they were showing the Newcastle - Chelsea match live, we ended up staying up to 6am watching that then the Man city match then the Middlesbrough match.
Canberra had loads and loads of museums and galleries, most of which were free so we tried to visit the most interesting ones. We went to the Canberra Museum and Gallery which had a good exhibition on this mad guy called King O’Malley who basically made Canberra but it turned out he was secretly American and lied about everything, he seemed like an intersting character. We also went to the New Parliament House on the top of captital hill, which was very modern considering it was finished in the 80’s, the tour was also good and we got to see where Julia Gillard sits etc. We went to the National Portrait Gallery too and we were the only ones on the tour so Katrina our guide basically showed us her favourite pictures, including one of Dame Edna naked!
On another day we went to the High Court of Australia and got to see the court in session, it was a lot of fun especially as the judges were clearly a bit bored and were really laying into one of the Barristers. We also went to the treasures exhibit at the National Library of Australia and mostly looked at the Captain Cook exhibits for obvious reasons.
The Australian War Memorial was an amazing, emotional place and we spent a whole afternoon looking at as many of the exhibits as we could and taking a very informative tour. There was so much to take in, we hadn’t realised Australia and played such a role in many of the wars. The closing ceremony was very poignant with a lone bag piper playing into the great hall.
Ste persuaded Cat to ride a bike for the first time in 10 years and we ended up doing a 15km loop over past parliament to the Australian Mint where we pressed our very own $1 coin then back along Lake Burley Griffith to see the Captain Cook memorial jet erupt.
Canberra was a nice place, there was lots to see and do and we tried to see what we thought the best parts were. It was also very bike friendly which was good for Cat. It felt like we learned a lot about Australia that we hadn’t even thought about and it made a pleasant change to do something a bit different.
