Canberra – Canberra, ACT, Australia

I did a little exploring of Canberra the day after the Half Iron. Before getting into a picture tour of Canberra, lets look at a video of the day prior to the Half Iron. This will give you an idea of the swim conditions. It wasn’t really this bad. The wind died down Saturday morning.

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The first place to see was the Australian Parliament House, which dominates the city skyline.

Lobby

House of Representatives

Flag from the roof of the Parliament House

Next, I went to visit the Australian War Memorial and on the way stopped to view the National Carillon.

National Carillon from ground(taken on Saturday)

Carillon Plaque

View of the Old Parliament House and New Parliament House

View of Australia War Memorial from same position on the opposite side of the lake

The War Memorial is also a war museum and is one of the better war museums I have visited. Do not be mistaken by the relatively small appearance of the memorial, inside there are numerous levels and halls of exhibits and a fairly extensive aircraft collection.

A P51D Mustang hanging from the ceiling. My grandpa flew one of these in Europe during WWII.

One side of The Hall of Memory

The Hall of Memory taken from the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier

Next, I went to visit the Australian-American War Memorial. I was picturing it being similar to the Australian War Memorial and contain a War Museum, however, it does not.

The Australian-American War Memorial

The inscription at the base

Territorial birds that attack humans are fairly common

A fairly common bird found near water in Australia

The last place to visit before getting some dinner, picking up the backpack from the hostel, and heading to the Greyhound station was the National Museum of Australia. By this time I was museumed-out, walked quickly through the museum, and viewed a movie collage of Australian history before leaving. For completeness I should add that if you want to make people smirk and smile, strap an 80 litre backpack to yourself and ride through town on a road bike.