Your chance to win a kangaroo

For our second weekend out of town, we went to Canberra! Wait... did I say second weekend? Oh right sorry, I forgot to tell you about our trip to the Blue Mountains... Even if it's been a month now, I promise I will post a few pictures along with super interesting historical facts. Very soon!

So last Friday was my last day at my old job. Not that it has anything to do with going to Canberra, but I thought it was worth mentioning. At 6pm, I said goodbye to my colleagues, goodbye to the harbour, and I joined Sophie at the central station where the bus was waiting for us. Canberra is a 3.5 hour drive but it doesn't seem that long when the light are out and you're reading/sleeping. You probably picture us arriving in an unknown city, half-asleep and wandering through town looking for our hostel. No no no: with temperatures close to zero, you'd have been looking at two frogs hopping down the streets as fast as possible. Luckily for us, after a good night sleep, we woke up to a bright warm and sunny day. The ideal weather to do what tourists do.

But yeah, what is it that tourists do in Canberra? Well it's the capital city of Australia, so there's a lot of building with the word "national" in their names, and of course museums and embassies and parliament houses (yep, 2 of them).


I like panoramas


Fun facts: Do you know how Canberra became the capital city of Australia? Until 1908, it was just a small village like many others in New South Wales. But the election of Australia's capital city changed its destiny: with Sydney and Melbourne fighting so hard over who would make a better national capital, the only fair choice seemed to be that little village geographically in the middle of the two contestants. The town was entirely re-designed and build for the occasion, from new buildings to the creation of an artificial lake in 1963.

Here's a few pictures from our first day in the city:


Random shots, with Canberra's very first school at the right (with only one classroom, Little house on the prairie style)


The war memorial


A world map centered around Australia


And that took us about the whole day! I can hear those of you who know how sport-inclined we are laughing... but Canberra is a huge city, and on top of that we actually climbed to the top of its highest mountain! Of course we only realised what we were doing half way through, and it would have been a pity to turn back.


Us at the top of the highest mountain

So the next day, having realized that walking wasn't really an option here, we put our genius minds to work. Think... think... what is the one thing that we never do that can make our trip a hundred times better? Renting bikes! And our Sunday was full of markets and lakes and aboriginal art. And parliament houses and totems.



The proof!


Random pictures of Canberra


The new parliament house


Two very different embassies


Totems in front of the Papua embassy


Kangaroos, emus and other animals adorning the old parliament house


And a few of the many statues that we saw along the way


What a weekend! We're still a bit stiff but we had a great time! Oh and I almost forgot about the contest. A free kangaroo to whoever finds the name of this bird:



(conditions apply. kangaroo might be made of plastic. while stocks last.)