I headed from Sydney to Australia’s capital, Canberra, in the state of Victoria, about a two and half hour drive. It was really hot today, a lovely dry 40 degrees! As we got nearer to Canberra, the radio was saying about a huge bush fire that had started across some 2000 hectares of land to the east of Canberra near Lake George. As we approached closer, we could see a huge wind farm on the hills with large plumes of smoke rising into the sky as helicopters carrying water flew above. Pretty scary if it was closer I can imagine.
Driving into Canberra, this place felt so quiet and small! I wasn’t sure what to expect but it is definitely not like Sydney or Brisbane in terms of skyline or the hustle and bustle. It felt like a large town like any other despite being the capital city. Canberra sits in a valley surrounded by lovely countryside and mountains so it gets the typical four seasons and variable weather. It also went from 40 degrees to late teens over two days! Canberra obviously has a lot of the government buildings and the old and new parliament ones so we had a wander around those. The city also has lots of museums, galleries and archives, we went to the Museum of Australia which was cool to spare and hour or so in which had lots of info and artefacts on the history of the country up to the current day. They also had a David Attenborough virtual reality exhibition on but sadly the tickets had run out before we got there. We also stopped at the Australian War Memorial which is at the end of a long tree-lined road and reminded me of Pall Mall in London.
We headed back to the campsite via the airport route. Again, for a capital city of this huge country, the airport is tiny! It only has a couple of international routes, the rest are all domestic which really surprised me. The highlight for me was to come……we drive up to Mount Ainslie which overlooks the whole city. WOW!! The view from here is incredible, especially at sunset. You literally get to see the whole of the city, from the airport in the east to the Telstra Tower in the West. We also got to see all the key sites that we saw earlier in the day. The sunset was awesome as it set behind the mountains. And to top it off, finally we saw some wild Skippies (Kangaroo’s!). Being a typical Brit, I wanted to see one in the wild and we saw loads! A great end to the day.
In summary, I’m glad I’ve been to Canberra but I wouldn’t rush back. It was one off the list but I think Australia has a lot more dynamic and vibrant places than here. Sorry Canberra! But clearly size doesn't matter here.
