12.03.2014Canberra – Capital City

Ok, we admit we did not entirely laze out on the east coast beaches. We managed to get some planing of our upcoming South-East-Asia trip done. The ground to cover is huge and lining up the countries without running into the monsoon and having to criss-cross back and forth throughout Asia requires some serious planning.
The main reason to travel to Canberra was not per se to visit Canberra, but to visit the Vietnamese embassy. Initially we had not planned to visit Canberra. However our spontaneous way of travelling required us to arrange for a visa, now that we knew approximately when we would be arriving in Vietnam.
But before dealing with our visas we had to reach Canberra. The road was in good condition and turned out to lead through scenic landscapes:

Our first destination in Canberra was the Vietnam embassy. Unfortunately it looked closed and nobody attempted to open the gate for us after we rang the bell. A bit puzzled we checked the Australian holidays and Bingo! It was “Canberra Day”, an annual public holiday to celebrate the official naming of Canberra. Luckily we had enough slack time and no other choice than to come back on the following day.

In the meantime we decided to at least get to see some of Canberra and visited the Australian parliament. The Parliament House is dug into Capital Hill and its roof is covered in grass and topped by an 81 m high flagpole:

Inside the complex there are exhibitions about the parliament, the process of creating new laws and the different chambers. This is also were Australia’s Magna Carta is kept which dates back to the year of 1297. The Magna Carta established the rights of the English people and curbed the power to the King. Even today it is still in force in Australia and parts of the United Kingdom.

The building was opened by Queen Elizabeth II in 1988.

On the top of the building there is an outside terrace from which one has a nice view over Canberra:

The next day everything worked out very smoothly. We applied for the visas in the morning and picked them up in the afternoon. Now we were all set for our visit to Vietnam!
The next day we headed back north towards Sydney.

On our way we stopped at a rest area. The “Beware of Snakes” signs were not very calming on our way to the toilets. You start expecting snakes everywhere! Luckily we didn’t run into any this time.

Back in Sydney there wasn’t much time left to enjoy the city and we were busy with packing and organizing our upcoming trip to Bangkok. However we still managed to eat out in a neat little Japanese restaurant nearby:

The next day we returned the car at the airport and took off towards Bangkok and the last big chapter of our trip around the world was about to begin!