Canberra (Australia) > Reviews (4)

A three hour drive from Sydney will find you in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), a territory in Australia surrounded entirely by New South Wales. There is not much in ACT apart from Canberra, Australia's capital city, designed in 1912 by Walter Burley Griffin.

Being a very new city all of its buildings and memorials are also very new, but nonetheless impressive. If you drive around the suburbs of Canberra you can see over 60 embassies, ranging from the massive and imposing American and Chinese embassies to those from Thailand and Fiji which were much more imaginative and beautiful. The Thai embassy is built in Thai style with the typical elevated roof design, upswept roof corners and roof tiles in gold colour - very impressive.

There is even an Aboriginal embassy opposite the Parliament Building consisting of tents and temporary dwellings and flying the Aboriginal flag. I believe it was erected in protest of the treatment of Aboriginal people by the Australian government and in particular over land rights. As well as the flag it also has a permanent fire burning outside it.

There are two Parliament House buildings - the original one is now an art gallery. The new Parliament House (built in the 1980s) is vast, with part of it with a grass roof which you can walk on - it looks as though the building as been partially built into a hillside. We went on a guided tour of the interior of the building which was very impressive with vast marble floors and impressive art displays including a tapestry which is one of the largest in the world.

We were there in Spring at the time of the Floriade flower festival which can almost rival the Keukenhof in the Netherlands for the variety and beauty of the flowers. There is a lake in the middle of Canberra named after Burley Griffen with a water jet spurt in the middle of it which goes up about 150m.

For spectacular views of Canberra and the surrounding area go either to Mount Ainslie or Black Mountain Reserve. Black Mountain Reserve has a Telecom tower which you can go up - it has a revolving restaurant and the usual tourist outlets. One word of warning though about the tower - don't take any electrical/battery operated equipment with you - my camera packed in completely and didn't start working again until we were in the car and heading back to the city and some people we were talking to in the car park couldn't get the central locking system on their car to work.

Although Canberra is beautifully landscaped, because of the vast number of public buildings there is a somewhat sterile feel to the city. There was not much character or atmosphere and at night everywhere was deserted. Everywhere seems just too "designed" with everything in its place. It's certainly very clean and ordered but I would not recommend a long stay here - just overnight on the way from Sydney to Melbourne or perhaps as a gateway to the Snowy Mountains.

One piece of Australian trivia for you courtesy of some Australian friends … you may be aware that the two animals featured on the Australian crest are the kangaroo and the emu. These tie in with the title of Australia's National Anthem - Advance Australia Fair - as neither of these animals can go backwards.