Smile for the Canberra

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Sarah and I caught the luxurious Murray's coach to flashpack down to the nation's capital Canberra, for the weekend.

The journey went quickly and before long Sarah had set me a 45 minute Canberra related pun challenge. Being a pun genius, this took all of three minutes and after five minutes, Sarah's cringes told me to stop.

We arrived in Canberra and were met by Natassja, a friendly Canberra girl who I work with in Sydney. She kindly walked us around the err... bustling city centre, helped us with the buses and walked us to our hotel (yep, hotel!) Amazing!

After the excitement of seeing a hotel room with only two beds in it (it was $10 more for a hotel room than the hostels in Canberra – crazy!) we went to brave Canberra's bus systems- it's not cool!

Eventually we made it to where we wanted to be. Perched up high on a hill looking down onto old Parliament House and the city of Canberra stood a sparkling new Parliament House.

From the hill, we were able to see pretty much everything Canberra had to offer including its beautiful lake and very cool fountain.

After capturing Dennis outside the building and having a very friendly policeman take our photo, we stepped inside.

The interior kind of looked like an old lady's house. In the 1970s. It had some pretty cool paintings and we were able to take the lift up to see the sculpture of the Queen and up higher to the roof which blew all the other views out the window. You could literally see everything from up there.

Next task was to try to find a bus back to the city which wasn't exactly the easiest thing I have ever done but eventually we discovered that if you wait outside the Treasury bus stop, buses actually stop there.

After getting back to the hotel, we realised that we'd returned in time to see the Sun set so we wandered down to the lake and watched as a group (gaggle?) of black swans swam off into the sunset. Very pretty.

That night we experienced a little of Canberra's nightlife which was better than expected but then, I didn't really expect much. The girls all looked like Barbie dolls and were covered in glitter and the boys weren't afraid to body-pop on the dance floor. Awesome.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed a few of Canberra's interesting sculptures my favourite being a rather disturbing birdman sculpture of Icarus and Daedalus all lit up for the night.

A random local approached us as we were admiring the sculpture...

“You girls from outta town?”

“Yeah”

“Having a good night?”

“Yeah, pretty good. Where's good to go out here?”

“Err, King O'Malley's. So you girls having a good night?”

“Yeah, still having a good night, thanks.”

“Where are you girls from? Scotland?”

“Yeah, sure why not. Or England maybe.”

So after another round of 'you girls having a good night' we returned to our lovely air-conditioned room and comfy beds and I passed out sound asleep almost immediately – having possibly one of the best night's sleep since I arrived in Australia.

Refreshed, we left the hotel for the Australian tradition of going for a big tasty breakfast in the city. We should do that more often at home!

After devouring our breakfast in the 31°C heat, we headed back to the Parliament sector. First stop and my absolute favourite thing about Canberra was the National Portrait Gallery. Lots of portraits of Australians and those who have helped make Australia what it is today. My favourite portrait was off the Australian Princess Mary of Denmark in a room looking down onto the Sydney Opera house (which was designed by a Danish architect.)

We were also able to see the temporary exhibition 'close up' which was brilliant. It was full of large photographic portraits of celebrities where you could see every mark and wrinkle on their face. If nothing else, seeing Paris Hilton up close definitely makes you feel a lot better.

A hop, skip and jump and we were in the National Gallery. I can't really say that I enjoyed in (because I didn't) but that's probably with the exception of pop-art, I just don't understand modern art and that's mostly what I saw. Although as a slight reprieve, I did like the sculptures outside the gallery.

And then our time in Canberra was pretty much up and the journey back to Sydney was upon us.

I think I had such low expectations for Canberra that I actually enjoyed it. Natassja had said to me that the best thing anyone ever says about Canberra is that 'it's not that bad.' So I told her that I would come up with a list of 10 things I like about the Australian capital city. I couldn't actually do it but instead, here are my top eight:

1)The National Portrait Gallery;
2)The sculptures (Icarus in particular);
3)The lake;
4)The fountain in the lake;
5)The view from Parliament house;
6)People are not afraid to body pop;
7)It's ok to wear glitter outside of the festive season; and
8)It's sunny.

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