Sydney to Canberra Day 1

This morning we woke up in front of Rosemary and Brad's house. We got our things tidied up before heading inside to meet Rosemary and Marg for a coffee. She also kindly gave us some cereal for breakfast. We updated them on our travels and they gave us some of their recommendations for Canberra. They also shared some of their Australia travel stories.

Unfortunately, we couldn't stay more than about an hour and a half because we needed to pickup the car from the airport to go to Canberra and drop off the camper. We went to Europcar, same one we used for the Blue Mountains, and I picked up a nice Ioniq 5. It was a nice car! We set off for South of Sydney to drop the camper off. Luckily Allan talked a lot and made friends with the guys, so we ended up not getting charged for the two chips that we put into the windshield. Seems like our cockroach problem was helpful in the end!

The downside to Allan making friends with the campervan people, was he chatted a bit too long, which made us leave Sydney later than planned to get to Canberra in time for our tour of Parliament at 3pm. When my subtle hints to leave didn't work, I had to say we would be late for our reservation. We drove slightly over the speed limit, but with the electric car we also had to drive efficiently in order to make it to Canberra on a single charge. Allan called Parliament to let them know we'd be a bit late which they said was ok. That made me feel better about slowing down to drive efficiently. We managed to get to parliament with about 25km left on our charge. It was close, but we made it!

We rushed into the building from the underground parking lot and checked in at the information desk explaining we had called earlier and were 15 minutes late for our tour. This was a different worker, and she said we were too late to join. I was not a happy chappy, and she said she could give us a quick run down on some of the information that the tour would give us. Before she launched into her session, Allan stopped her and asked the closing time. She told us Parliament closes at 5. So instead of staying at Parliament, we left and drove about 5 minutes over to the Australian War Memorial, Canberra's number 1 attraction.

I know what you're thinking, the war memorial is number 1? Really? Yes, really. The memorial is housed inside of a museum dedicated to the Australians that fought in WWI and WWII. It also has sections for wars fought during the Cold War era and modern day. With only about 25 minutes until they closed, we raced up to the main event, the Roll of Honor and Memorial Hall. A huge domed room has stained glass windows with different types of service members, such as nurses, soldiers, etc. in the center is the Tomb of the Unknown Australian, similar to that in Westminster Abbey. In the front do the Memorial Hall is a reflection pool and the everlasting flame. On two sides of the domed hall are all of the names of men and women who lost their lives fighting for Australia. Red poppies are placed in the crevices between bronze panels with striking effect. After visiting this area, we tried to see some of the galleries, but they were getting closed off due to the imminent closing time. A bit annoyed by that, I decided I'd come back tomorrow and have a proper look. It's just a shame that Allan didn't get to see it all.

After the war memorial, we hurried back over to Parliament before that closed in just under an hour. The entry foyer is composed of marble and the black sections of marble have fossils in them. One of the prawn fossils is called Steve apparently. We walked straight through the foyer to the Great Hall. The huge room has wooden panels and a shiny wooden floor. The back wall has a colorful mural. We left the Great Hall and ascended the white marble staircase on the left side of the foyer. There was a balcony around the edges of the Great Hall, so we had a quick peak at the bird's eye view before moving on and trying to find the Senate Chamber. Our time was limited and a security guard gave us a 5 minute warning as we made our way to the Senate. We quickly went in, for some pictures, and power walked across the building to the opposite side where the chamber for the House of Representatives is. They both looked pretty standard to me, but I'm sure we may have learned more on the tour we missed.

With both chambers visited, we squeezed in a visit to the Magna Carta on our way out. Unfortunately we missed the rooftop views, one because we couldn't find it, and two because it was most likely closed. But we managed to see most of the building...I think.

We left as they shut the door behind us. We needed to charge the car, and the Parliament parking lot has chargers. We got it all hooked up and took a small walk out front to get pictures of the building and also managed to see Old Parliament House and some foundation stones. We were disappointed when we got back to the car and saw it had barely charged. Allan went out and got some more pictures and I changed my clothes for dinner with Penny. She has messaged to say her parking lot has chargers, so we abandoned Parliament and drove to her apartment block, later than planned (I'm sure there's a theme here for this day...). We managed to find a charger, and downloaded the app at an agonizingly slow pace, only to click "charge" and discover the charger wasn't the right shape for the car. We drove to a new charger, downloaded that app and finally got it on charge. Poor Penny was catching us at the end of a long and busy day!

We walked along with Penny to a nice Aussie bistro place called Rebel Rebel. They do small plate sharing style so, with her recommendation we ordered a few things like the prawns, rib eye, stuffed zucchini flowers with chili and burrata, and cabbage with tahini and harissa. Everything was absolutely incredible and it was so nice to catch up with Penny. So much has happened for both of us, and it was also so lovely to see a friend after being away for so long. After dinner, we also decided on dessert, a mango ice cream sanga (sandwich) and rhubarb and lemon ice cream crumble. It was divine and a taste of home (Scotland).

We walked back with Penny to her apartment and we put a very necessary load of laundry on. We shifted that over to the dryer, said our goodbyes, and had to race over to the airport to pick up another relocation for Allan to use tomorrow to climb Mount Kosciuszko. Tomorrow I'll spend the day with Penny while he climbs. Then it was just the last drive of the day to our hotel just outside of Canberra. It was a truly hectic day, and I'm looking forward to some sightseeing tomorrow with a friend.Baca lagi