15/1/09 We set off early and arrived at Canberra mid morning.
The first place we went to was ANZAC Parade and the Australian War Memorial. This turned out ot be a bit like the Victoria Memorial in Calcutta, in that it was a museum/art gallery inside. It had large exhibitions about the part Australia played in WW1 and WW2, and some smaller ones about the Korean War, the Cold War and others right up until the present war in Afghanistan. There was also a tomb for the Unknown Australian Soldier, and a memorial garden surrounded by walls covered in poppies and the names of dead servicemen/women.
After this, we went to Parliament House. I was particularly eager to come here because I'd read that it contained one of the four surviving original copies of the Magna Carta! It's kept in a glass case filled with argon, and as you'd expect, it's under dimmed light. We went inside the House of Representatives room, passed by portraits of a lot of the Prime Ministers, looked at the document of an official apology to the Aboriginal peoples from the present Prime Minister Kevin Rudd (and one of their reply to him accepting the apology), and we took the lift up onto the roof. There's a garden there, and fantastic views over the rest of Canberra and beyond.
When we left here we drove back over Lake Burley Griffin to the city centre, where we had some lunch and looked around a bit. Then we crossed the bridge back again, and I visited the National Gallery of Australia and the National Portrait Gallery. In the former, I saw some famous pieces of artwork such as the Sidney Nolan 'Ned Kelly' series, a piece by de Kooning which I've forgotten the name of, some pieces by Andy Warhol (including the famous one of Elvis Presley pointing a pistol), a Jackson Pollock work, and a couple of others. When I left, I walked back to the car along the edge of the lake, and spotted a couple of black swans! I'd hoped I'd get to see some of these before I left Australia, so I was quite pleased by this. At the car I met up with Dave, who had been busy reading, and we drove to our campsite.

I really liked Canberra, actually - I don't think it deserves its reputation for being boring! Although obviously the nightlife isn't half as lively as Sydney, Melbourne or any of the other cities that we've been to, I liked the fact that there were so many parks, and as the sun was out again all day, it was lovely and relaxing to stroll through them. I think they've got the combination of lovely well cared for grassy parks and historical buildings/museums/galleries just right, and the variety of shops and restaurants in the city centre is good.