Canberra

Wedding cake or parliament?
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Having been to Australia a few times we thought it was about time we saw the capital city even though people had said there’s not much to see and Bill Bryson was very dismissive of it. We however thought it was a beautiful city (the sun was shining which helped). There isn’t much to see but what there is is beautifully laid out and it’s full of parks and lakes. We had a really interesting guided tour of Parliament – sadly they weren’t sitting so we couldn’t see Mr K.Rudd in action but we learnt a lot and sat in the visitors’ gallery which is very open. It’s a lovely modern building with lots of symbolism in its design and so different from our own H of P.

Katie and the delicious pavlova she decorated
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After the day looking around we went to stay with part of the family who had stayed in our house in October (we have done a house swap for the final part of our trip only they stayed in our house in October). It was great to meet them – they are a lovely family but it was really strange looking at their holiday photos of them sitting in our kitchen!! They were extremely welcoming even when the phone call came that one of their sons had been injured at football and had probably broken his arm. We wondered if we should leave them in peace but he came home and fortunately his arm improved during the evening and they didn’t need to rush to casualty.

The following morning we set off on the last leg ..