After Sydney, we moved on to Canberra. It’s a strange city. It was planned so everything is completely structured, the road network, the buildings, the views. It is like a model city. And apparently one of the cleanest, hospitable and secure capital cities in the world. I’m glad we went to see it though as I don’t think its the top of people’s lists when they go to Australia. It is the capital city but designed to house the administration of the country, so not really in the same league as other Australian cities, such as Melbourne, Sydney or Perth, in terms of things to do.
We only had one day to see some of Canberra. We went to the Australian War Memorial first.
It’s a huge and extremely impressive museum. Even if you’re not into military history I think you can appreciate how incredible this museum is. It seems to be one of the top sights in Canberra and you could easily spend an entire day (or two) here.
Secondly, we went to have a nosey at Parliament House. Luckily it was open so we could actually go in. If you stand in front of the “new” Parliament House and look behind you, down the hill is the “old” Parliament House which has been repurposed into the Museum of Australian Democracy. Outside of the building is a small aboriginal camp, complete with an Aboriginal Embassy (a small hut). It was great to see this here, and my boyfriend confirmed it had been there the last time he went to Canberra, so I’m glad they have been “allowed” to stay. The Aboriginal flag is flying outside of the big colonial-style old Parliament House right opposite too.
Back to the “new” Parliament House…it is built into a hill! There is grass on its roof. I like it! And if you stand on the roof and look across the city you can certainly see the wheel and spoke design of the roads, its a pretty cool view. I opted for a paint-only approach below, no heavy black outlines, I was happy with the result.