So cruising down the road, I’ve come up over a hill to suddenly recognize a place! Why, its Canberra. Capital of Australia. And my car thermometer is telling me its hovering around 40C outside. I’ve always been interested in visiting Canberra because I’ve always really liked Washington, DC and Canberra seems to have been modeled on Washington. Not knowing the place at all, I just cruised down towards the parliament building to see it in person. I noted a big exit ramp for the parliament building and immediately thought to myself, I better not go up there or I will get in trouble with security. Needing lunch, I found my way back to a big park next to a big river for a bit of a picnic. While having my lunch I had a quick squiz through my Lonely Planet guide to see what there was to do here. Lo’ and Behold, there were lots of free things you could do including visiting Parliament and lots of museums — just like Washington DC.
I immediately went to check out the Parliament because it does seem to dominate so much of the news in Australia. I was able to park my car for free under the building, catch and elevator up to the main floor, and pretty much tour the building on my own. I did tag along on a free tour as well, but I found the free access to be quite boggling. We had to go through airport-type security and they did dust me for an explosives check, but after that I was free to roam. Mind you, there isn’t too much going on there at the moment with everyone away on summer vacation, but still… I was able to walk into the house of representatives room and the senate to take pictures.
One of the interesting things about the place, which is quite modern and only just opened in 1988, is the thought that went into the design. It was felt that the building should never be placed on a hill because it would symbolize that the government was above the people when it reality it should be the people above the government. So the building is actually underground partially and to this day visitors are encouraged to ride an elevator to the top of it and walk around on the lawn that covers its roof and flows down a hill to its side. It used to be that anyone walking through Canberra could just walk over the building, but that had to be changed to now require all interested parties to go through security first.
The is a lot more I would love to see in Canberra, but my time is running short and I must be moving on towards Perth. In the evening I headed up into the hills for cooler temperatures and camping in a big local national park. At the moment they have total fire bans in place due to the very dry hot weather, so dinner is consisting of cold meat sandwiches, crackers, tuna and/or sardines, and fruit and nuts. Not real exciting.
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