Day 109 – Daisy? I Canberra

We set off from Marulan back past Goulburn, which we find out is Australia’s first inland city

A brief detour via Breadalbane – Daisy says Google took us this way but it might have been her fault ????

This includes passing something called the Wet Lagoon – we can confirm, it was indeed wet

Back on main road, we stop off at Lake George

We make it into Australia’s Capital Territory (ACT), Canberra

Driving into it around all thesuburbs and park in the centre to head for a Nando’s for lunch – eeek!

Though not exactly like the Nando’s we love: you can only have the “lemon and herb” sauce cooked on your food rather than as a side sauce, and “medium” doesn’t seem to be a selection for your chicken to be cooked in

Cheaper than the UK though – £17 for what is usually at least £25

Nando’s finished, we watch the “Free Palestine” rally go pass – a reasonably big march with some police presence but nothing over the top which was nice

First major attraction of the day – The Big Parcel!

Yep, it is just a statue of a parcel from Australia Post and Dave would almost fit in!

To calm down from that extreme sightseeing, we took a stroll to City Hill: it’s a hilled park on the centre of a roundabout with a lot of poison positioned for the bunny rabbits everywhere ????

Now to head to the South Parliament side of Canberra but it’s a bit toasty and a walk so we grab a couple of electric scooters and scoot!

We go through Commonwealth Park, visit by Lake Burley Griffin and over the bridge

The lake is artificially made out of a segment of the Molonglo River, that runs through ACT; we went close to see a duckling and a comerant!

Almost there but our poor Daisy goes arse over tits and flies off her scoot! She’s fine though – good thing it’s a legal necessity to wear a helmet and only ride on the pavements, ey?

Finally make it to Old Parliament House and struggle to find the “parking spot” for these bloody scoots!

Successful, we get into the building where it’s hosts the Museum of Australian Democracy (MoAD)

It’s free to stroll around King’s Hall (King George V Statue), Chambers for the House of Representatives, Chambers for the Senate as well as a collection of humorous cartoons from the year taking the mic of the current financial crises in Australia

Having seen the history, we walk over the road to the new Parliament House which was finished in 1988

Big lawn with so many bunnies frolicking

A must-do for this tourist stop is to head up to the roof (it’s all free – yay)

You can see the Old Parliament all the way over to the Australian War Memorial

Inside, we see the new Senate and House of Representatives – no one at work today! – and even a whole LEGO build of the place!

Now we catch the bus into town – watch out for this as it’s for ATC citizens only …it seems as you have to have a “MyWay” card – no cash or card… thankfully lovely bus driver takes pity on us and gives us a lift

We see the Times Fountain – so exciting ????

This takes us back to the car: we head to the Australian War Memorial

It’s a lovely and massive construction with grounds dedicated to the world wars but unfortunately closed and construction ongoing

We then head to Mount Ainslee for the lookout

Good call would be to visit around sunset time as you’d definitely be able to catch it here, with good weather of course

Down back to the centre as we’re getting peckish but there’s nowhere to blooming park!

Seems we’ve caught the last day of the Braddon Fringe Festival, a classic and retro car event – figure we might as well indulge in it

Walk up and down the street where there’s so much buzzing: people wondering the streets, food vans aplenty and cars literally parked anywhere possible for the limelight – lucky to have caught this!