We arrived in Canberra around midday yesterday after a few hours driving through the Great Dividing Range from Kiama to find that there were no caravan parks or camping areas anywhere near the centre of town, so we ended up pitching at the local Exhibition Grounds before heading into the city.

We drove around for a little while trying to see what was about and working out where we could park up to explore a few of the local attractions. It soon became apparent that Canberra is the type of place that people either drive through or know exactly where they are stopping because there were no parking places along the streets and hardly any public parking at all! We eventually found ourselves underneath the new Parliament House, where we planned to look around.

When we got into the building we found that there was a free tour leaving in just a few minutes so we joined a few other people in one of the rooms while we waited for our guide. When he arrived he proceeded to tell us a little about the history of the building and how it was designed around the principles of circles and the ideas of Walter Burley Griffin that are echoed throughout the city.

He took us out onto one of the veranda areas and showed us the central line that starts at the top of Mount Ainslie behind the city and comes straight through the war memorial, Anzac Parade, old parliament house and new parliament house and the flag staff on top of the building. We were also told about the design of the courtyard area in front of the building - how the red stone represented the red sands of the outback, the mosaic in the middle was an aboriginal design, the ridges around the mosaic showed the dividing range that straddles the country and the water that surrounds the whole thing represents the fact that the country is an island.

We then went back inside past the entrance hall where there were tall columns of marble that stretched from the floor to the ceiling that were supposed to represent gum trees and stars around the base of the upper level walkways that showed Australia's membership of the Commonwealth.

We continued on towards the House of Representatives where John Howard and the rest of the cabinet fight it out with the opposition in the green upholstered room. We were told of the rules and regulations and the history of the cabinet and shown where everyone sits and the jobs of all the people in the room that aren't politicians. There are also special VIP seats that visiting dignitaries sit in and whenever someone new gets voted into the House, their wife is allowed to sit in on their very first parliamentary meeting. There were also lots of public seats for anyone that wants to come along and watch, as well as some screened glass rooms around the top that visiting schools an groups have access to when watching parliament.

We left the House of Representatives and crossed the building towards the Senate room. On the way we stopped in a huge room that had paintings of all the Prime Ministers of Australia adorning the walls, which overlooked a courtyard below with a fountain in the middle. The fountain is used by many politicians to disguise what they are saying and people can often be seen having secret conversations next to the edge of the water. Any wonder people think politicians are all bent??

The Senate room had a similar layout to the House of Representatives and once again our guide told us about the various positions in the room and the jobs that everybody holds. The Senate room was all upholstered in reddish pink and the rows of seats around the top of the floor where the public can sit, got lighter as they went up as to represent all the different hues of the gum trees that are so prevalent in Australia.

Throughout the tour we were shown various priceless artworks that had been donated to the building when it was opened and there were also clocks all around the building with two lights on each one. Whenever there is a disagreement that can't be solved in the House of Representatives, one of the lights on the clocks light up and all the MP's have five minutes to get into the House before the doors are locked. After five minutes the other light comes on and people can no longer get into the House and those that are in their have to vote on the disagreement until a solution can be met.

Once we left the Senate room and the tour had finished we went up the elevator to the top of the building, where we could walk around on top of parliament, which is partially grassed. The flag on the very top of the building is the size of a double-decker bus and has to be replaced every six weeks or so because they rip due to the strength of the wind up there. People used to be able to literally walk all the way down from the top of the building to the entrance courtyard at the bottom, but after September 11th, they realised that someone could quite easily drive a car on top of the roof and drop it through one of the skylights in the building and blow the whole place up so access is now restricted!

We left the parliament building and drove down a little way down the road passed the old parliament building and up Anzac Parade to the war memorial. The war memorial is another really nice building with a view straight down to the two parliament buildings in the distance but it was closing when we arrived so we had to make do with the views from the outside.

After a while it started to get colder and colder so we headed to the main shopping centre for something to eat and to find somewhere warm, before we headed to Mount Ainslie to check out the views over Canberra at night. From what we could tell, there was only one shopping mall in the city so we thought it would be relatively simple to find somewhere for dinner but it took us half an hour just to find our way out of the complex as it seemed to go on forever! But this was nothing compared to when we tried to make our way back to the car - after an hour we finally managed to access the right level, but not before we both slipped on the wet floor inside the shopping centre!

When we had finally navigated our way back to the car and were out in the streets again, we headed up towards the Mount Ainslie lookout. Or at least that's where we thought we were going, but the thing about Canberra is that all the streets look the same and after driving around in circles (quite literally) for an hour or so we took the easy option and headed back to the war memorial to see city lights from there and if it was even worth getting up to the lookout. When we got to the top of Anzac Parade we could see that there were a few lights on but it wasn't really anything special so we decided to just head back to camp. Just as we were turning around we saw a sign which read "Mount Ainslie Lookout". Typical!

We were soon back at camp and suddenly we realised just how cold it had become, as we could see our breath inside the tent! It was absolutely freezing all night and we managed about three interrupted hours sleep as every time we moved we touched some cold part of the bed and it woke us up again!!

This morning we decided that one day in that weather was more than enough, so we are heading to Jindabyne in a few minutes, just outside the Snowy Mountains.