Canberra is Australia’s not so well known capital city. Rumour has it, we’re still not sure if this is 100% true, that when deciding upon said capital city the Australians couldn’t make a decision between the two obvious contenders of Melbourne and Sydney (in our opinion, the obvious choice is Melbs although we may be bias). So, what did they do, they picked, or more likely created Canberra, roughly in the middle of the two and appointed this the capital city. Jonny visited Canberra on his last Australian road trip and after talking to more or less every Australian and fellow backpacker we were more than aware that the city has the potential to be a disappointing one compared to the other contenders.

Waking at 7am we escaped the impending rain by no more than two minutes, it started pelting the front windshield as we drove out of the campsite and onwards towards ACT (Australian Capital Territory). First stop however was in a nearby town where we miraculously managed to have a free HOT shower at a local information centre. Feeling refreshed and ready to give Canberra a fair crack at impressing us we drove into the city centre and made our first stop the Australia Museum. We had heard that they had a David Attenborough virtual reality exhibit on but soon learned that this was at an added cost and took the price of a ticket towards the $50 mark. Being travellers and obviously trying to do this trip on a budget we decided, with ease we must point out, that we weren’t actually that interested in paying so much for a museum and would rather put the money towards something a bit more exciting. After using the free wifi and browsing the free exhibits in the lobby, we left.

We headed to the War Museum next which we must say was quiet impressive. Providing a detailed history of Australia’s part in both world wars as well as more recent conflicts up to and including the wars in the middle east we spent a number of hours browsing through the many exhibits and improving our knowledge. This museum is free by the way and definitely worth a visit. It had Hayley, who is not often a big museum fan fascinated!

Not only is it interesting and impressive in its content but it is also impressive to look at.

Situated at the end of Anzac Parade, a long straight road which centres on the Parliament building, lined by trees, monuments and parks on either side it makes for a great picture of the city too.

The rest of ‘things to do’ or ‘things to see’ in Canberra included more museums, some art galleries and some entertainment/educational parks but feeling like we had already seen the best we opted to not visit these.

We finished our time in Canberra by driving to the city centre and stopping for lunch, the centre itself feels like the rest of the city. We described it at the time as feeling like a toy city, very new, clean and everything seemed to of been designed to look immaculate. The road lanes are wide, the apartment/office buildings spotless and the gardens kept crisp which all adds to the feeling.

Canberra had been what we expected and we both agreed we wouldn’t be returning in a rush any time soon. The weather hadn’t helped the cause but being the type of city where you spend your time indoors at museums it wouldn’t of made too much difference in truth. The Australian War Memorial saved this city from extremely bland, boring reviews on the part of a traveller and if we were advising others on their own road trip we would more than likely tell you to avoid it all together to stick by the coastline for more beautiful beaches and viewpoints.

Leaving the ACT we drove the next couple of hours back towards the coast and a small town known as Batemans bay, we stopped here for a break from driving but again there is relatively little to see or do, so wouldn’t advise on spending much time here, before we rejoined the highway and made for our next intended stopover at Jervis Bay, find out what we make of that in a blog post soon to come.

Check out our Canberra video on our youtube channel at the link below

Jonny & Hayley 🙂