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On The Road
We finally left Sydney feeling a little sad (we had an excellent time, thanks Aunty Susan, Amelia and Christopher!) but also excited about our Australian adventure. We took our first Greyhound bus to Canberra, expecting great things especially after some of those South American buses (Bolivia I mean you!) but actaully it was pretty bad. Craig nearly had to fold his legs in half there was so little room, but the driver was lovely and played a Norah Jones CD so that kind of made up for it. We found our way to our YHA hostel which is supposed to be one of the best in the world (we saw no evidence of this, though it was nice). As we have come to find though, with YHA, it was over-priced and packed.
The Capital Park (City)
We'd heard quite a few bad things about Canberra so were interested to see the city and form our own judgements. The first attempt didn't go too well as it was so hot we had to keep stopping for shade (there wasn't much). We made it to Lake Burley Griffin and fell asleep under a tree. Still, at least we saw the lake and got a good view of the various buildings on the other side. We decided to give up for the day and sat at the hostel bar refreshing ourselves! The day after we left, Canberra had its third highest temperature on record ever 42 degrees.
Take two of the city tour: We actaully saw quite a lot of the city on the second day. We visited the National Capital Exhibition and saw the original plans for the city, the National Library which had really good air-conditioning, and Parliament House. We did a self-guided tour of Parliament House which we found really interesting. We got to see the Houses of Representitives and Senate as well as look out from the roof at the whole of Canberra, where you could clearly see the triangular road layout. We also visited the shopping centre and the lake again and saw the memorial jet (we fell asleep for a while and I got some enormous revolting bites on my forehead, neck and fingers so I could barely move my fingers the next day, Craig didn't get any!!).
Overall, we found Canberra to be not as bad as it's reputation would have you believe. It's clean and modern (like being in a piece of modern art) and full of healthy-type people running and cycling everywhere. There are also lots of green open spaces that make it feel like more of a big park. However, there is very little nightlife and everything is so far apart it's quite a trek trying to walk everywhere (as we stupidly did). The best point: cleanliness, the worst point: the National Museum - what were they thinking? (see pics).
The Road to Melbourne
After deciding not to visit Melbourne we found ourselves on a Greyhound bus to: Melbourne! Craig had tickets to the Australian Open and I decided to go also, so we took our first overnight bus in Australia.
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