Canberra

All above: Australian War Memorial

Australian National Gallery

All above: Parliament House

I've had to put Canberra in a completely different post to avoid drowning you all in pictures. I took a bus tour to Canberra on a Monday. I was worried in the morning because as I waited outside the Sydney YHA for the bus it was absolutely pouring, and I was wearing jeans and a jumper. It's supposed be summer btw - you know, 35C heat, but instead it was rain and temperatures typically 15-20C. Luckily when we got out of Sydney it was not raining. I also managed to get a few hours sleep on the bus, which is a big thing for me. I must have been so smashed from the flight plus the trip to the Blue Mountains two days before that my brain temporarily forgot I can't sleep in a moving vehicle.

Canberra is just about one of the most beautiful cities I have even been to. I felt that it was so clean and open. For those who don't know it's a planned city that was built to resolve the Sydney/Melbourne capital city dispute. More than 30% of the population are government workers.

The war memorial was beautiful, and I had to stop myself crying since thinking about wars makes me sad. The murals above are made out of the tiny little tiles pictures. I'm pretty sure it was made of something like 6 million of those tiny squares. It was really amazing in person, and the mural of the pilot is probably 4-5m tall in person. After the war memorial we had a very quick visit to Parliament and an even quicker visit to the Australian National Gallery. For some reason we were very late and only got a painfully short 30 mins, by far not enough time to stare at Monet and Sidney Nolan, among many others. I would really like to go back to Canberra now when Parliament is in session. Especially question time, it's just hilarious. Bob Katter is hilarious. Although most of the politicians put on a good show, Bob Katter is just something else.