So we have been in Canberra for nearly two weeks now and we love it. We got here by taking our first Greyhound bus from Sydney taking around four hours. It was funny as after Southeast Asia we were sick up to the back teeth with bus rides to get everywhere. But after a break of a few weeks we were rather looking forward to getting on a bus again to take us to our next destination. The Greyhound service is pretty much the cheapest option for getting around Australia offering a number of different routes and destinations so it will be a service that we are defiantly going to use again over the next twelve months. We are staying with Ashleigh's cousin Dan and his family and when we pulled up into Canberra bus station we were greeted by Dan's smiling face. After getting our bags off the coach we walked to Dan's tank...err sorry I mean car and made our way to Ngunnawal, a district of Gungahlin in Canberra. I say that Dan's car is like a tank as he has Nissan Patrol with 33 inch tyres and heightened suspension. You nearly have to take a run and jump up to get in it.

Driving through Canberra gave us a good look at the layout of the city and its suburbs. The thing with Canberra is that it has large built up areas with massive sections of green land in between them. Kuala Lumpur is supposed to be one of the greenest cities in the world but I think Canberra beats it hands down. We were both looking forward to meeting Dan's family and the ride didn't take long to get us there. Ashleigh had met Dan and Danielle 12 years ago when she had came over with her mam and dad when she was 14 but none of the kids were around then so meeting them was new to us both. The kids are great and are a right laugh. Normally when you meet people's kids they are shy and timid around you for at least 30 minutes until they warm to you. Not these little monkeys, they were laughing, joking, taking the Mickey and jumping all over us straight away. You have Riley who is 8, the oldest of the boys and the most adventurous of the bunch, Zac who is 7, the lively ladies man who normally has two girls in toe at any one time, Cooper who is 4, the super smiley cheeky monkey and then there is Isabella, the only girl who is 7 months old. She has the biggest staring eyes and loves grabbing Ashleigh's hair and has the greatest giggle. So we settled in with a few beers over dinner and after the kids had gone to bed we talked into the early hours having a good laugh catching up and talking about our travels so far.

We spent a few days looking around Canberra taking in the sights visiting different locations. First off we took a trip out with Dan and Riley and visited Parliament House. It is a very extravagant building being dug into Capital Hill with its roof covered in grass that you can walk over and it is topped off with an 81 metre high flagpole with a flag the size of a double-decker bus flapping gently in the breeze. Standing on top of Parliament house gives a great 360 view of the city. The city has been designed and built to run in lines leading in towards Capital Hill. It's hard to describe but as you stand there you can look out into the city and follow the roads that jut out like spiders legs giving you a direct views of the Australian War Memorial and Mount Ainslie. The inside of the building was impressive too looking classy yet modern. One of only four known copies of the 1297 issue of the Magna Carta is on display here and I found it amazing looking at something so old that meant so much to our English history. After leaving Parliament House we took the short drive down to Old Parliament house to check out the Aboriginal Tent Embassy that is set up on the lawn in front of the old parliament building. It is classed as an important site in the struggle for equality and representation for Indigenous Australians. Basically in 1972 Aboriginal Australians set up a camp in front of parliament house and lit a fire as a means of protest against their treatment by the Australian government. A judge passed a law that as long as the camp was manned by at least one Aboriginal at all times that the camp could remain but as soon as the camp was unmanned the police could move in and remove the tents and put out the fire. The judge passed the law under the assumption that the protest would only last a few weeks. So nearly 40 years later the tents are still there and the fire is still burning. We think it is a great site with handmade signs and aboriginal art adorning the paths and the lawn. My favourite part was the 'SOVEREIGNTY' sign that had been made in individual letters and had been placed around the embassy's camp fire. After leaving the Aboriginal Tent Embassy we drove up to the Black Mountains that are northwest of the city centre. The mountain is topped by the 195 metre high Telstra Tower which has great views from its viewing platform. The viewing platform is 870 metres above sea level and gives a great overview of Canberra. The photos don't really do justice to how high up we were. It was like looking down on a satellite view of the city, it was pretty much a bird's eye view and as you walked around the tower we could pick out the sites that we had visited earlier that day giving a great over view of the cities layout. After taking in the amazing views for a while we headed back down the tower and called it a day on our sightseeing.

The following few days were spent applying for jobs online and walking around the shopping centres dropping off CV's in practically every store possible. A job is a must for us as we need to earn some Aussie dollars to enable us to do everything we want to do whilst in Australia. Over the past two weeks we have applied for over 50 jobs and have had a few interviews. I had an interview and heard nothing back at all which I thought was very rude and unprofessional of the company. As soon as companies know that we are travelling they just don't seem to be interested. We have both been for medicals to work for a local super market and Ashleigh had a call from them this morning offering her a job starting on Tuesday. Yesterday she had an interview and was offered a job in a wedding dress shop too, so she has two job offers making me an officially kept man at the moment. Hopefully all that will change soon and I will get a call at some point next week. A job will be great for us and give us a bit of routine to our week, something we have been missing for the past few months. We can't wait to start earning a few bucks and saving up for the next leg of our Aussie trip.

We have had nights enjoying ourselves with Dan and Danielle with a few late nights sat around the dinner table with a steady flow of booze to fuel us on. A stand out night has to be the day before Australia Day. Australia Day is a public holiday that fell on Wednesday 26th, so what better a way to spend the night before than having a good old drink. We had told Dan and Danielle about the tequila Saturday we had had the weekend before so we thought why not make the upcoming Tuesday 'Tequila Tuesday' and what a night it was. Not only was there tequila to accompany the beers but a tray of vodka jelly shots that added to the fun. We had filled our bellies previously and when the kids were tucked up in bed we started our Australia Day celebrations a tad early. We had a great night even though me and Ashleigh can only remember half of it. Looking at the camera the next day to find photos of me lying on the floor letting the dogs lick my face to death was rather surprising as I didn't even know I had done it. Dan just smiled and laughed at us the next day, dropping in jokes of things that we had done the night before like Ashleigh dancing around the kitchen by herself singing into empty bottles and the stories that we had told them about embarrassing situations we had been in back home that we probably shouldn't have. It was best that we couldn't remember what we had been doing as we couldn't be too embarrassed about what we couldn't remember as Dan could just be winding us up and knowing Dan he probably was. All we know is that we had a great night, a good laugh and we spent our first Australia Day hung over to hell watching movies and taking time out to recover. In all honesty we thought it was a great way to spend the day as a day drinking again was defiantly not on the agenda.

We are loving stopping with Dan, Danielle and the kids. They have set up their caravan in front of the house for us to stay in whilst we stay with them, as in their words "You have your own space and it saves you from the kids jumping up and down on your heads first thing in the morning" We love it in there, it has all mod cons and it is like being on one long camping holiday. There is nothing better than going into the caravan last thing at night, getting the cuppas on the go and sitting at the table watching a bit of TV before bed. It's great having a bit of normality within family life and being able to get mucked in with the cooking and cleaning. We have had a good few movie nights that has suited me and Ash down to the ground. We love taking a load off watching a good movie and it makes us feel like we are back home. It was funny cooking at first as we haven't cooked a meal for the past four and a half months. We made a roast dinner and I was put in charge of the meat and the Yorkshire puddings. I opted for a good old roast chicken studded with garlic and mixed herbs and that was great, shame about my Yorkshire puddings though. They tasted like Yorkshire puddings but they didn't exactly rise to the occasion. They were like those mini Yorkshires you get at buffets much to my disappointment. So I had Ashleigh and Dan taking the Mickey out of them all the way through dinner. But Ashleigh is making some today and to my enjoyment, they are exactly the same as mine so it will be me mocking Ashleigh's Yorkshire pudding making abilities today. I have to say though, (here come the excuses!) I blame the oven and the kitchen equipment I was using to make mine, I was working in a kitchen that was unfamiliar to me and wasn't used to the oven plus Dan and Ashleigh were picking on me saying "No pressure for them to rise mind" every two minutes. These excuses have to be made just to make me feel better about myself.

As I was saying before, we have spent a massive chunk of our time in Canberra so far searching for employment and yesterday we decided to take a day out from the job hunt and take in some culture. Ashleigh had an interview at 5pm but until then the day was ours to enjoy. We made our way into the city centre and walked down towards Parliament House where the National Gallery of Australia is situated. We had read in a culture guide that there was an exhibition on street art and we thought it would be cool to check out. As we walked into the gallery we discovered that there was a lot more on offer than the exhibition that we had came to see. Looking at the gallery guide I discovered that they had work by Jackson Pollock within the gallery and as an arty nerd I was rather excited to see it. I have always liked his work and never had the opportunity to see it with my own eyes. So we hot footed it to the section of the gallery where Pollock's work was being displayed. It was great to see the detail and the layers that went into his work but as I turned round I noticed a pop art section and my heart nearly skipped a beat. As I walked towards it Ashleigh could see the excitement building up inside me. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, before me was the original art work of my pop art heroes Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein. I was blown away and I never thought I would be able to see them with my own eyes without visiting the USA. There we were stood in front of such iconic artworks such as Warhol's multi coloured prints of 'Mao Tse Tung' and 'Elvis Presley' and we were able to view each individual dot of paint that made up Lichtenstein's 'Kitchen Ware' cooker. I was like a kid in a sweet shop and Ashleigh loved it too. As a cheeky bonus we discovered Fernand Leger's 'Les Trapezistes' a massive colourful canvas nearly 4x4m and for the icing on the cake was a small sculpture by Pablo Picasso. Being the arty farty I am I was so excited and happy having the chance to see these pieces. We eventually pealed ourselves away from the gallery room containing my art heroes and made our way upstairs to the Space Invaders exhibition. The exhibition showed the best of Australia's street art from graffiti to sticker work. If you like Banksy you would love this exhibition. We spent a lot of time checking out the works on offer and even watched a film that had been made on the graffiti artists taking part in the exhibition. We both left feeling inspired with heads full of ideas for paintings, T-shirts and tattoos that will be designed and made in the future. We had a great day and headed back to Gungahlin on the bus in time for Ash to have her job interview. To round the day off she got the job and we both nearly skipped back to Ngunnawal happy as Larry. Hopefully the next time you hear from us I will have a job too, if not I will be a kept man doing the washing and ironing whilst Ashleigh brings home the bread!

Love Peter and Ashleigh x