Believe it or not: I finally made it into the very capitol of Australia!
In case you didn’t know: neither Sydney nor Melbourne are the capitol. As a tiebreaker a completely new city has been created: CANBERRA! The problem with it is (in my opinion) that it is a little bit hard to access. I mean, all the cities in Australia are a bit far from each other and all that. But although Canberra is only about 300 km away from Sydney there are not too many flights going there and no direct train connection available. So you have to get one of the coaches like Greyhound or Murray’s to get there. And that’s what I did.
My flight from Kuala Lumpur arrived at 10:40am but the queue at immigration was massive and it took me over an hour to get through it. I had purchased a wooden souvenir from Malaysia and as I have entered wilderness areas and freshwater streams I had to report to a quarantine officer. And guess what was going on in the arrival hall? The series “Border Security Control” was filming! I loved the series when I watched it in the UK and that’s also the reason why I was so nervous upon first entering Sydney over 11 months ago. I imagined them interviewing Markus and me for hours and searching all our suitcases to finally hopefully come to the conclusion that we are no threat to Australia. Well, this time as well the interrogation was over in 2 minutes and I got into the arrival hall to buy something for lunch. Then I sprinted to the coaches to catch the next Murray’s coach to Canberra.
The coach was very comfortable and I was seriously so happy to be back in Australia. Like unbelievably happy to have hot but dry weather, the good and proper infrastructure (like the pedestrian ways) and the always friendly people who I totally understand as they speak proper English :-)
I checked into the Canberra City YHA, freshed up and then immediately went out again. On the way towards the ANZAC Parade I passed the Canberra Convention Center, St. John Baptist Anglican Church and lots of greenery. Some cities are lucky enough to have a few nice parks. Canberra on the other hand is one massive big park with buildings scattered around it. Distances are huge although it all looks so close on a map.
Anyway, I arrived at the ANZAC Parade and it is huge and long.
Along the parade are several different memorials for the different wars, the New Zealand-Australian connection, the Australian Navy/Air Force/Army/Service Nurses etc.
I walked up to the Australian War Memorial but couldn’t go in as it was already closed.
I walked back towards the hostel, bought a few things at the supermarket, ate some Chicken burger and drank this beer at the Hog’s Breath Café.
Then I went back to the Australian War Memorial to take these pictures at night when it is illuminated.
The memorials are illuminated as well.
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Have your say now! Would you do the same thing or would you do it differently? Do you have any travel tipps for me for my onwards travels? let me know!