Day 120 - Josh's brother was coming at 10am to pick up the keys so we were up early and packed ready for him. We made our way in to the city for the final time, we had an hour or so before our bus so popped in to Peterpans to abuse the free wifi and find out directions to our next couchsurfers. The bus to Canberra took 4hours and we arrived at 5pm to 40 degrees heat! It was hot and not a gust of breeze! We had a text from our couchsurfer Alison to say she was away for a few days but her flatmate Cam would come meet us once he had finished uni. We took the opportunity of air-conditioning and gave in to a coffee and muffin in McDonald's while we waited. With great timing just as we finished Cam turned up! It was about a 5 minute walk from the bus stop which was perfect as we couldn't have walked much further in the heat with our massive bags. The apartment was a block of social housing (a bit like council houses) that a group of students part of a student housing co-operative had bought and works out as really affordable accommodation It was great as there was 3 blocks of 5 apartments of students so they had a lovely community going on. We were very behind on uploading photos and our blog etc, so we spent the afternoon uploading and Skyping home as it was too hot to go outside. We were then invited to another one of the student flats for tea. We arrived and she had cooked the most amazing vegi pasta, it was lovely and we all watched Trainspotting on their big projector. Everyone was so lovely and friendly we had such a good evening.

Day 121- The flat had no air-con so we woke up early very hot and bothered, after putting even more photos on facebook we headed out to Parliament house. It was very very hot and it was a very long walk. It was now Sunday and the city was dead, like an actual ghost town which was so strange for a capital city. The road ran along the dual carriageway- a city built for cars rather than walking. We stopped at Lake Burley-Griffin for lunch, we had made some tuna pasta, brought some hummus and cut up some carrots and cucumber to dip in. After an hour or two we arrived at the Parliament house. There was a free tour on that we joined and it took us around the houses of representatives and senators and the great hall. It was an interesting tour although I think Lloyd enjoyed it a lot more than me. We headed up to the roof where we got amazing views of the city. We headed back to the house a slightly longer way back seeing a bit more of the city. We stopped off at a tiny supermarket to get some tea in and walked back through the ghost town. We once again spent the evening uploading things.

Day 122- Again it was a scorching hot day, we just didn't want to leave the house. We lay in bed till 10am feeling pretty tired from all the heat. We eventually got up and did a few things before heading out after lunch. We walked the very long walk again this time to the War Memorial. We thought it was just going to be a memorial but no, it was a massive museum and a really good one too. With just 2 hours before closing we dashed round trying to see as much as we could. It was an amazing museum full on information on many wars focusing a lot on the Australians and Kiwi's, we walked around the WW1 part then in the ANZAC hall we tagged along on a tour before watching 2 of the 3 sight and sound presentations. The presentations were on The Lancaster Bomber- G for George and Australian pilot and the second about the WW1 fighter pilots, they were amazing so life-like, heart-breaking and informative. At 5pm we were asked to leave and go to the courtyard for the closing ceremony. A man came out to play the bugle, he played 'The Last Post', it was beautiful and we couldn't believe this happened everyday. We were very annoyed at ourselves though for not leaving earlier as we did miss half the museum. After making tea we started some research on New Zealand.

Day 123- We got up early as Alison had let me use her bike and another lad in the apartment Dan had lent his to Lloyd. We decided to ride around another of the lakes. We road past the Captain Cook Memorial fountain, past the Carillion which is a big monument that holds a set of bells that was given to Australia as a present from the Queen. It was a beautiful morning and we really enjoyed our bike ride. We didn't have long till our bus so once back we quickly jumped in the shower, had some lunch, said our goodbyes and rushed to the bus-stop with seconds to spare. We were on, ready for our 9 hour bus ride to Melbourne. It was hot, the air-con was on but wasn't really cooling the place down that much, we passed a few bush fires which was pretty scary. We stopped off for a meal break at 7pm and it was still 38 degrees, the TV was on and it was mad to see the news was covering a bush fire at the place we had just past. We arrived in to Melbourne at 11pm, we got off the bus to 16 degrees, what a shock we were freezing haha. We walked along to our hostel, when we arrived they told us one of us, me, had been upgraded from the 10 bed dorm to a 4 bed female dorm. We were not happy, this wasn't an upgrade for my benefit, as they get most their custom from the cheaper bigger dorms they had just moved all the girls out so they could have more availability for people without taking people's bookings in to consideration. We were not happy being separated and put our foot down, so after noticing we were not happy they upgraded us to a private double room. Lovely! After one of the useless staff members spent about 20mins trying to find us sheets for the bed and only ever coming back with dirty sheets I demanded to come with him so off he took me to the staff quarters where I went through the sheets myself to find a clean one I was comfortable sleeping on! Not a good hostel!