A Capital Visit

The journey to Canberra was long and fairly dull, the only thing of interest being that as much of the state of Victoria had bushfires the sky was thick with smoke in pretty much every direction.

Anyway I got to Canberra and it's actually an ok place. It was only chosen as the site for Australia's capital to stop the cities of Melbourne and Sydney from fighting, so is actually in the middle of nowhere and not many people go to visit. I was staying near the bus stations and a decent enough shopping centre. However for some reason I decided to hire a bike and cycle around. There are lots of cycle paths, but I didn't have a map of them which made life a little harder.I headed to the National Museum of Australia which is a look at Australian life over the years which was interesting and then headed to the Parliament Building. Unlike the Uk, it's really easy to get into parliament. Admittedly they were on xmas holidays, but it's free and you can just wander into the House of Representatives and the Senate and have a look around, so I did. Down the hill is the old Parliament building which was supposed to be temporary but I think they were there for 68 years. You actually had to pay $2 to go in there, so I amde sure I watched a couple of old films they showed to try and get immigrants to Australia which were interesting and very dated. Then I headed up to the War memorial museum which has alot on the 1st and 2nd world wars from an australian point of view which is a little different from what we're used to.

The next day I got up early and headed to the Australian Institute of Sport, this time by bus as it's a bit out of town and I had no directions. My guide was a little lacking in charisma, but they have really good facilities there and some interactive games you can have a go on. You can also see a film of an acl reconstruction being done, so I watched a bit of that to see what's been done to my knees over the years! By the time I got back to town it was time to head for another bus and onto Sydney.