Yesterday, Bob and I spent much of the day on planes flying (and losing a couple hours) from Perth to Canberra via Melbourne. We are pretty proud of the fact that we left Perth having spent no money on food or drink due to the free breakfasts and canapé spread in the evenings for Marriott Bonvoy Club members.
We arrived at the Midnight Hotel, another Marriott hotel, in Canberra, the capital of Australia at about 7:00 last night via cab from the airport. Our visit to Canberra brings us to the Australian Capital Territory, which means we have at some point briefly visited each of the 6 states — New South Wales (Sydney), Queensland (Brisbane), South Australia (Adelaide and Barossa Valley), Tasmania (multiple towns), Victoria (Melbourne), Western Australia (Perth), and 1 of its 2 territories. We have not yet visited the Northern Territory.
Canberra has a population of approximately 450,000, which makes it Australia’s largest inland city. We had a good walkabout today to get an initial overview of some of its most prominent sites. We hope to explore some of those further tomorrow.
First, we headed to the Australian War Memorial, which seems to be in the midst of a pretty comprehensive renovation. To be honest, we weren’t as interested in the memorial as accessing the trails behind to climb Mount Ainslie for the overlook, but we did look at some of the sculptures on the grounds.
not enclosed in construction fencing
commemorating the 1,787 Australian prisoners of war
who died in the Sandakan death marches in Borneo
at the end of World War II.
The trail to the top of Mount Ainslie begins behind the War Memorial and is 1.8 miles with a 525 foot elevation gain.
that we have seen throughout our trip. Maybe eucalyptus or gum trees?
that lines up with Parliament House across the river
After descending the mountain, we walked along the ANZAC Parade to view some of the memorials that line both sides of the road. ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp.
Finally, we made our way down to the lovely trail along the Molonglo River, which was quite active on a Saturday, to get a little closer view of some of the national museums located there.
Peckish Travels 