Canberra

The trip from Melbourne took around 9 hours, half by train then the rest by bus. It was reasonable scenic in the middle and the longest journey I'd done in one go for a while. I got to Canberra at 9pm on Friday night, and their were already a few casualties around the place. The hostel was about the only one in town and was an outrageous $32 a night. Because of the extortionate rate I decided to make use of the facilities as much as I could: umpteen cups of free team, and a few visits to the pool, spa and sauna. Unfortunately my plans to do a few lengths were confounded by the fact the pool was around 2m by 2m, and 1m deep (the no diving sign wasn't really necessary). The spa was to cold to sit in for long, the sauna wasn't hot enough and the light didn't work, but I went back the next day to get my monies worth, god damn it! The hostel was also pretty dead and about the only guy in my dorm was Taiwanese. He was a nice guy, but man, he had a serious snoring problem, enough to ruin my nights sleep. I spent 2 days/3 nights in Canberra, on the first day, after buying my bus ticket to Sydney, I bussed over to the War memorial/museum. First up was a long and fairly informative tour, starting in the memorial and moving on to the vast museum. There were also large exhibits featuring in sound and light shows, including a Lancaster Bomber, and a Japenese mini-sub that had got into Sydney Harbour. I went back through the centre of town for lunch and then to the National Museum of Australia. This was modern, good and quite quirky. Like the war museum I spent over 2 hours here and didn't see everything.

On the second day I first went to the Australian Institute of Sport, where there was a 90 minute tour led by an athlete, an archer in our case. This was okay, but nice to do something a bit different! After my packed lunch I went to the parliament house. Again there was a free tour, and I was the only one on it at that hour. Got to see in both chambers, went up on the roof and saw some old documents including a copy of the Magna Carta. After that it was off the the National Gallery of Australia, which I really enjoyed, and again didn't cover all of. After that I just had a walk back to the hostel via the shores and bridge over lake Burley-Griffen. That night I met a guy from Northern Ireland and we went for a quick pint, but Canberra was sooo dead on a Sunday night. He told me he was going to support Partick Thistle if he went to Glasgow Uni as Mark McCrystal had gone to us from Derry! The night before I'd got up to try and watch the football, but they didn't have the right channel so I've not seen any games so far, but am aiming for the final tomorrow night!

Photos:

Stained Glass window at war memorial.

View down ANZAC parade to war memorial from roof of new parliament building.

The old parliament building.