Canberra

After deciding we’d maybe visited enough Australian beaches we headed to Canberra for a bit of culture and evidently cold weather! We left Coffs Harbour at 27 degrees, and having driven for 10 hours found ourselves in 14 degrees, which hurt just a little bit! Apart from the British weather Canberra is a really nice city, being quite similar to Washington DC in that it serves the purpose of the capital city politically, as opposed to being one of the country’s largest or busiest cities. As a result Canberra is really green with wide tree-lined streets everywhere, and all the government buildings are set in vast parkland plots – the parliament building even has grass growing on the roof!

Our first stop in Canberra was the War Memorial, which apparently is the world’s largest. As with much of Canberra it is strategically placed and designed, with the entrance way in complete line with the main doors of the parliament building. The buildings are also in plain view of each other, with a wide mall stretching between them. As well as serving to remember all Australians killed in conflicts, the memorial also houses a museum presenting information on Australia’s involvement in both the first and second world wars. After visiting the memorial we headed up the mountain behind it, Mount Ainslie, which is also perfectly in line with both the memorial and parliament. The mountain gives a brilliant panorama over the city, although we didn’t stay long as it was freezing!

We also visited the Parliament building itself; Australia’s most expensive building costing 1.8 billion dollars! Here we had a guided tour of the building, visiting both the Senate and House of Representatives which mirror our green and red colour scheme in parliament. We also saw the world’s second largest tapestry, after one in Coventry apparently – not really the highlight of the trip! After visiting parliament we headed to the High Court, where we watched an incredibly dull 30 minutes of a finance case. On exploring the rest of the court however, we found a bored guide who firstly congratulated us on visiting Canberra and then more than happily explained the case to us, making it sound quite interesting! Finally in Canberra we visited the Museum of Australia, which explained a bit more about the history and founding of Australia by the Europeans. So after busy 36 hours we’re feeling a little more cultured and a little less sandy!