Canberra times - Part 1

After the craziness and busyness of the last few months, we decided that this winter should be a little more low-key. We want to take a beat, enjoy Sydney and areas nearby, and mostly chill out a bit at home. So this weekend we rented a car and took the three hour journey inland to the ACT: Australia Capital Territory.

The ACT is pretty much like Washington DC. It's technically a state, but it mainly consists of the capital city, Canberra. And even though Canberra is the capital, it's not very populated. It's the eight largest city in Australia, which is really saying a lot about how small it is. Mostly people live there because they work for the government, so visiting on a weekend can be an interesting experience. There are massive roads, tons of museums, and huge green spaces, but often no one else to be seen. T loves Canberra, and I think this is why.

Wide roads, no traffic

Basically zero crowds at any given museum

There's lots of public art in Canberra - primarily visited by wildlife

We went to Canberra a couple years ago around this time of year and went to a truffle farm to watch them harvest truffles. This time, we thought we might focus on some of the museums and galleries in the city. But we really went without much of a plan: besides relaxing and see what the weekend brought us.

First up on the Saturday morning after our arrival was to head over to the National Museum of Australia. It's a free museum that does a great job of capturing the key parts of Australian culture: the nature & wildlife, Aboriginal history, European history, and how Australia culture has evolved over time with all those influences. It was really well done and we both loved the Aboriginal exhibit the most.

National Museum of Australia 

The Uluru Line: symbolically connecting the museum to Uluru

Inside the museum foyer

Part of the Aboriginal portion of the museum: message sticks

It wouldn't be Australia without some slightly weird things. Like the wool of a sheep who was lost for three years and set the record for wooliest sheep once he was found.

We also booked tickets for a VR experience, where we could watch a David Attenborough documentary made for VR. It was a little surreal, just sitting in a room with a bunch of strangers and then putting your goggles on. Maybe this is the museum of the future?

Even though it was a little odd, we really liked the experience! Part of the film was about the Great Barrier Reef, so it was fun to feel like we were diving there and experiencing it again.

We'd planned to rent bikes and bike around the lake in the afternoon. But that day was the coldest day of the winter, and T wisely said it would be too cold to be fun. So we just had a stroll by the water instead.

The view really was pretty without our weird faces in it.

While we were nearby, we checked out a couple other public places. The kids discovery museum, Questacon, is a huge draw in Canberra, and it was a shock to the system after being in the quiet National museum. We didn't have the courage to actually go through it, but we walked around outside. 

We also checked out the Treasures Gallery and the National Library of Australia. Again, there wasn't a line to get in the door, but it was an interesting place. The "treasures" were mostly historic documents, but we did see a writing desk used by Captain Cook. And, no surprise, one of the Olympic Torches from the Sydney Olympics. 

View from the steps of the Library 

More to come....