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I got into Canberra mid afternoon, once I had checked in I went for a wander around the capital of Australia. Its much calmer than Sydney, with large pedestrianised sections to walk through. There were people protesting in the street and lots of random sculptures. My first stop was to find some credit for the Australian sim I got when I was last in Australia. Once that was sorted I booked myself in for a Segway tour around Canberra. I then had a walk through the shopping areas and found my way into a comic book store, where I found graphic novels 1-4 of the firefly stories in hard back. It was the first time I had found all 4 together and so bought them. Once back at the hostel I read the first instalment. Before heading to bed.
I started walking across the water to get to the main park for the start of the Segway tour. Once there I signed more paperwork and paid. We then had 30min getting used to the Segway and learning how to speed up, turn and slow down. When we had mastered these we started the tour, heading to the old
parliament building, new parliament building and heading along the water front where each year a person of significance had a plaque put up to signify the difference that they had made. We headed across the bridge into the park on the other side of the river. When there the tour continued, we stopped again with dramatic backdrops of parliament. We then headed back to the start where the tour finished. During the tour I had managed to go at full speed and ride on different surfaces, such as grass, tarmac and gravel.
I headed back to the hostel, my feet aching, yes segways make you feet ache due to the way you stand to ensure that pressure is in the right place so as to move forward. As I crossed the main bridge there was a protest crossing, they were calling for the government to have more compassion to refugees and provide basic human rights to those who are in camps. The large group had drums and music and were a friendly colorful bunch.
When I reached the hostel I made myself some lunch and met up with one of the girls in my room. We headed to
the museum. The museum had many different installations, from what it was like for the fist arrivals in Australia, to a garden designed to represent Australia. The garden was like a map of the country, with a hill in the center (Ulluru?), A tunnel running underneath the hill (Coober Pedy? all the miners?), There was a house with a tree to represent the standard house and garden of Australians, there was also a group of trees representing the indigenous populations home. Around the border there were plants from European countries which gradually went from leaning away to leaning in, representing how the people who came gradually embraced life in Australia. I felt the garden much more industrial than I was expecting, I thought there would be much more in the way of plants (I have mentioned almost all the plants), but then the garden was designed to be provocative and make you think about how we impact the environment in which we live, the way that even starting a new life in a new country we still bring old traditions from home.
We finished in the museum with a drink and cake in the cafe, before heading back to
the hostel. On the way back it started raining heavily, but we were happily laughing and having a good time.
The following day I packed and was ready to leave, I checked out, but left my bag in the room. I had the day still to explore, before I must get the greyhound to Melbourne. So I headed out towards the National War Memorial. I walked down memorial drive, which had individual memorials for each of the wars that Anzac's have been involved in. The drive is long and wide, but makes you pause at each memorial. When I reached the main memorial I walked around, saw the unnamed solider, observed how people put poppy's next to family members names on the plaques that line the memorial. I stood in the center of the main arch and looked directly at old and new Parliament, this seems an important part of the design, the large memorial drive leading the gaze to the memorial from parliament, a constant reminder of the repercussions of decisions made by those in power. I then headed downstairs to the museums dedicated to all the wars. The 2 main exhibits being WW1 and WW2. As big
as the memorial seems above ground it seems to triple in size underneath. As I left I bought a poppy pin, after all it was November and remembrance day was only 10 days away.
I headed back to the hostel and picked up my bag before heading out to get the bus, it had started raining while I was in the hostel and I walked to the bus station in a huge storm, sticking to parts of the pavement under cover. Once at the bus station I got on my over night bus to Melbourne, I slept well.
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