With winter now approaching we've got a bit more adventurous with our weekends and took a weekend break to Canberra. We've been in Oz over a year now and haven't been south of the city yet so it came as quite a pleasant surprise to see that it's not all Gum trees as far as the eye can see as it seems to be going north! In fact we were treated to green hills, grazing cattle and rolling plains which made a nice change. The drive to Canberra is very easy and only about 3 hours which means Dylan can make it without going loopy.
We checked into our hotel and scooted off to the Parliament building only a couple of blocks away. All very nice too and it gave us a real feeling of how young a country Australia is. We did the usual thing and tagged on the back of a guided tour round the various rooms and took a seat in the Senate and House Of Representatives. It was the weekend so no-one was, ahem, "working". Order. Australia uses proportional representation and in Western Australia, Kalgoorlie, is a single electorate. At 2,295,354 sq.km it is also larger than Western Europe. The minister for Kalgoorlie receives a special budget allowance for flying around his constituency.We also had a look at the National Museum of
Australia while we were there and were again very impressed. Canberra is quite a nice place, but I have to say. It's pretty devoid of people too! I was having fun making up tourism slogans like "Come to Canberra. No-one else does." or "Canberra - All fun. No queues." . Not as harsh as I think Bill Bryson said though - "Canberra. Why wait for death?". Speaking of death, we checked out the war memorial which seems to be sort of compulsory when visiting capital cities for some reason. All a bit sombre but it did give you a sense of Aussie history. Another little known fact is that Australia has been in the fortunate position to have never fought a war on home soil. I reckon it should stay that way too...
Australia while we were there and were again very impressed. Canberra is quite a nice place, but I have to say. It's pretty devoid of people too! I was having fun making up tourism slogans like "Come to Canberra. No-one else does." or "Canberra - All fun. No queues." . Not as harsh as I think Bill Bryson said though - "Canberra. Why wait for death?". Speaking of death, we checked out the war memorial which seems to be sort of compulsory when visiting capital cities for some reason. All a bit sombre but it did give you a sense of Aussie history. Another little known fact is that Australia has been in the fortunate position to have never fought a war on home soil. I reckon it should stay that way too...
So there you are. Our little escape to Canberra. Dylan liked it anyway. Loads of space to run around in without too much worry about cars n' stuff.
