Blogs from Australian Capital Territory, Australia, Oceania - page 2

Here is a map of the next big trip - not the prettiest map going around but you get the idea!... read more

The A.C.T (Australian Capital Territory) After a quick breakfast and settling up with the RSI Club Motel ( by the way a very nice hotel if you venture through Wagga Wagga- Don't forget to bring your lawn bowling equipment!) For most of the trip over to the ACT, I was on a 4 lane divided Highway which was fantastic since I wouldn't have to deal with many Road Trains. The scenery was much different from anything I've seen in Australia thus far. Rolling hills with lots of green - I thought at one point I was back in Scotland on last years trip. Lots of grazing sheep and cattle. Side Bar: Where as the U.S. spends the largest portion of its budget on Defense then I'd say the Aussies spend the largest portion of their budget ... read more

Everything is gradually coming together for the start of my pilgrimage walk following the St Olavsleden route to Trondheim. Physical: I might do one more walk with a loaded pack next weekend, but last Sunday's walk was pretty challenging, and everything performed well. Elaine gave me a hand with some fiddly adjustments, and I loaded up with 13kg in the pack on Sunday. Erick had a Meetup walk planned into Mt Rob Roy, on the south-east side of Canberra. The loop was about 12km with 650m of climb. We walked first to Big Monks and then across to the Rob Roy Nature Reserve. Mental: While one might walk alone, there are always people in towns and other places one stays. But this is quite different to walking with a companion. I know that this can be ... read more

Not many international tourists visit Canberra, or Australian ones either despite it being their capital city. We've gotten an equal mix of surprise and bemusement from those we've told about our visit here. Even our AirBnB host (in Canberra) politely asked us why we came, as he was more used to people renting his place for business reasons than vacation ones. Most people prefer to go straight from Sydney to Melbourne, bypassing this city altogether. But I think they are doing Canberra a bit of a disservice, because while it certainly is less metropolitan than Sydney it has lots to offer a visitor. It is a planned city, built from scratch to a design in an era (the early 20th century) that seemed to assume private automobiles were going to dominate transport and link the various ... read more

Canberra The capital city of Australia. The city is still expanding - they are putting in a tram service at the moment, when they drew up the plans for this city, the planned for the future as well. The changes they are making now to the city still use the original plans. Because of this the city is very circular. The main point of the city is Parliament House. This stands in the middle and the city moves out around it. Driving around Canberra isn’t too bad. There are a lot of big roundabouts, you just have to know which exit is yours else you could start to get dizzy. We hadn’t really heard much about Canberra, most other backpackers/travellers we had met had not been or planning to go. We thought as it was the ... read more