Day 49

We got up in the morning, as if we were off to work (6:30 - insane), finished off and drove up the final 80kms or so to Brisbane where we dropped the van off.All was good with that, so we got a taxi over to the airport ready to head off to Canberra.

We arrived at Canberra airport to a lovely evening with lots of people on the go. We got on our bus to the city centre and on our way there we realised why there had been so many people at the airport. Everyone was leaving their 'favourite capital' for the weekend.

We got to the hotel and it was great. The bed was big with fluffy pillows and we even had a spa bath. Such a change from the van! We got some vouchers through the hotel for the club next door so we went and had a couple of drinks in there before we headed off for dinner.

Day 50

After a lovely sleep, without having to make the bed up, we got ready and walked into town which took us about an hour. We had decided that we would walk to all the attractions instead of going on the bus. Our first stop was the national portrait gallery which I probably enjoyed more than Martin. We had a coffee in the café before we headed up to Parliament house. Not a very exciting building but at least we could say we had been. On our way to the war memorial, we were reflecting over the man built capital that all Australians dislike, and we decided that it's not really that bad. In some ways it is actually quite nice to have a modern city with large cycle lanes and new facilities. I don't know if it's true but we were told that the location of Canberra were decided by a physic who were given a map of Australia and then pointed to a spot and that's where it was built. The war memorial was great, but we were so tired by the time we got there so we didn't have the energy to walk around very much. We walked into town and had some dinner before we walked back to the hotel and finished the evening with a Spa bath and some champagne. Backpacker style!

Day 51

We took the bus to Cootomundra where we met Clair and John. We had decided to come and stay with them for a couple of days before we travelled back to Sydney. We had a lovely dinner and watched some Goodnight Sweetheart which Marie had never watched before.

Day 52

Clair and John decided to take us to Cowra for the day so we set off around nine. It took about an hour to get there and when we arrived John took us to the information centre where we watch a hologram tell us about the prisoner of war camp outside of Cowra. Next we had some lunch and then we went to the Japanese garden which had been established to commemorate the Japanese prisoners of war that died during the breakout. We had lovely weather so it was nice to walk around the garden and feed the fish. We got back to Coota around five and we just relaxed for the rest of the evening.

Day 53

John had to go to work in Wagga Wagga so Clair took us into Wagga where we had some coffee. We were going to have a BBQ in the evening so Clair needed to do some shopping and told us to go off and explore the town. We had a walk around the garden and then we went to see an exhibition of the first Chinese settlers. The art centre had a glass exhibition on so we decided to go and have a look. On our way in we saw a big red back spider (only the 2nd most venomous spider in the world). It was a nice day out and the glass exhibition was well worth a visit. We headed back to coota where we had a BBQ and met a couple of Clair and John's friends.

Day 54

We were heading to Sydney today so after a quick visit to town we got packed and headed for the train. The train journey was pretty long and we arrived in Sydney around eight. We checked in to the hostel and then decided to walk into town to check out if the pub were going to show the spurs game tomorrow morning. We went to bed fairly early so a pretty boring day.

Day 55

Our alarm went off at six and off we went to the pub for the match. It was two nail-biting hours but Spurs won and went thought to the quarter finals. Go on the Spurs. We went back to the hostel and went back to sleep. In the afternoon we had a look around paddy's market and then went to the Botanical Gardens. As we were walking along the path we noticed all the bats hanging from the trees. They were horrible looking and Marie couldn't wait to get out of there. Marie went and had her haircut in the afternoon and then we went out for dinner in the evening.

Day 56

We didn't do much during the day and in the evening we met up with Barney and Kate for a meal at a Thai restaurant called the Crocodile thai. The food was great and authentic. If you go to Sydney you must go. After dinner we walked down to Darling harbour and had a couple of drinks before heading home to bed. Last night in Australia, tomorrow New Zealand here we come.