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Our next stop after the blue mountains we were heading to Australia's capital Canberra. Many of the guide books don't have a huge amount to say about Canberra and that fact that it was only made the capital to stop Sydney and Melbourne fighting over it. This means there are no cool bridges or funky architecture to draw in the tourists however we felt a tour around Australia wouldn't be complete without a visit to Canberra. Within a few minutes of driving into Canberra I already knew I wasn't going to navigate this city. Lots of circles and one way systems that never seem to correlate with the maps. When I wasn't rotating the map trying to find my bearings I was shouting at Michael who was shouting at me for not being able to find our way!! Eventually we managed all be it accidentally to find the Australian War Museum one of the cities highlights. This was definitely more of a boys museum and Michael really enjoyed it with all the old war memorabilia from WW1 right through to exhibitions on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. I liked it because they had a children's section where you could try on all the old war clothing. Jokes aside it was actually a really interesting museum with lots of very touching and sometimes harrowing accounts of war. I think its safe to say that we both left the museum having learned something about the worlds wars that we didn't know before! After the war museum it was back to the Bermuda triangle that is Canberra to try to find our hostel. Yet again it was nothing more than a fluke that we found where we were staying and I definitely had a few grey hairs by the time we got there. It was basic but clean and comfortable and had a kitchen with a hob and everything so no microwave dinner for us! We headed off in search of a supermarket for dinner supplies and had a wander about the area around our hostel which actually turned out to be the nicest suburb we would come across during our stay. The other thing that Canberra houses is all of the government buildings including both the old and new parliament buildings and all of the foreign embassies some of which are in the style of their native architecture. We were really surprised to find that the whole area was very quiet however that made it a more relaxing walk for us. The scenic walk takes you past the old parliament building, taking in the memorials and memorial fountains around the parliament. You then pass through the old rose garden where all the parliamentarians would munch on their vegemite sandwiches! The walk takes you past some other less interesting government buildings before finishing at the new parliament, well I say new it was built in the eighties and at the time was hailed a complete disaster due to its unusual appearance and ridiculous overspend (sounds very familiar)! Having visited our disastrous parliament building in Edinburgh we were expecting a real eyesore. We have to be honest and say that what we saw was certainly not offensive on the eye! From the outside it was a very unusual structure with the whole building buried under a giant mound of grass crowned by a giant metal teepee waiving the Australian flag. Once inside it was much the same as any government building with lots of beige walls and marble floors. In its defence many of the walls are used to display Australian art with everything from paintings to sculptures and tapestries which certainly brighten the place up. Part of the self guided tour takes you into the house of representatives and where all the action takes place in the house of parliament as well as the grand hall and the tour ends with an elevator ride to top of the giant mound of grass on the roof to take in the views from above. Whilst we are not hugely excited by politics it was still fun to see where all of Australia's major decisions are made and neither of us had ever been into a real house of commons before. After the scenic walk we jumped into the car and took a tour around the embassies the particular highlights being Thailand, Indonesia, China and Papua New Guinea. Feeling suitably cultured it was time for a late lunch so armed with the map we attempted to find the city centre and the main shopping district. Much to our surprise the city's shops are all housed in the one giant shopping centre. Without a doubt this is the largest shopping centre we have ever been in, built over 3 levels and over a kilometre from start to finish the thing was massive however it had to be as this was Canberra city centre aside from this there are very few other shopping districts. It has to be one of the weirdest city centre's we have ever experienced and whilst it was convenient to have everything under one roof it was almost intimidating in its size and if you were looking to find a specific thing you could have got lost in there for days trying to find it! We went to one of the many food courts hidden within this retail jungle for a spot of lunch before heading to the library to take advantage of the free internet to catch up with our emails and more importantly book somewhere to stay for the following night. The whole city takes a bit of getting used to with its lack of any history or notable point of interest it is almost trying too hard at times to justify its existence. The whole city is just too new it almost feels like your driving through The Truman Show where everything is man made with no natural beauty or charm. We are glad that we took the time to see the capital city however we wont be making it our number one holiday destination in the future!
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