We were up and about early this morning as we had to check out of the hostel. We left our bags in lockers and popped to the post office to send a box of 'things' home! Hopefully our bags will be lighter now and the parcel should arrive home just before we do in March as it takes about 3months via sea mail! We also did a few other bits and bobs around the shops. We popped to the library to catch up and then made our way to the Royal Australian Mint.
On the map it didn't look far, just a little further than the walk to Parliament house, but 1 hour 20 mins later we finally arrived!! It was quite hot which didn't help but after some food we were ready to see some money being made!! The Royal Australian Mint is the only coin producing factory in Australia. There used to be ones in Melbourne and Sydney but these shut down and the work was reallocated to Canberra. They produce all the coins for Australia, and also for some other countries and they even made the medals for the Sydney Olympics in 2000. It was an interesting place to visit as you could watch coins being made through the windows by the workers and machines. We watched a detailed video about the process for everyday coins and also for the special, non circulating ones. You could buy these special non circulating ones for lots of money, or you could just have one made for you by a special machine! 4 days into 2010 and we already have a $1 dollar coin with 2010 printed on it! One of the sets of non circulating were of British sterling coins. I stood looking at them for ages as it has been so long since we have seen them that I had almost forgotten what they looked like! When I pointed them out to Mark it took him a while to realise what they were! It will be weird using them again when we return!
Needless to say, we caught the bus back into town as we didn't fancy the long walk again and we wanted to get to the museum of Australia before it shut. We were a little rushed looking around it but it was more interesting and informative than the one which we visited in Sydney. We got to discover more about the history of Australia and even learned some of the Aussie lingo, much of which we haven't actually heard!!
We then walked back to the hostel to cook dinner and chill while we waited around until it was time to leave to catch the 11.55pm bus to Melbourne.