Aussie Roadtrip: Canberra

The Snowy Mountains eventually gave way to the ACT, and before meeting up with Kat's aunty Joan, we paid a visit to Mr Turnbull and co at Parliament House. Unfortunately, Mr Turnbull was occupied (in Indonesia, sweating it out with President Widodo in the local markets), so instead of chatting with him, we went on a free tour. Hosted by a crazy and talkative Danish-Australian, Michael, who oozed passion for the building and its workers we whizzed through parliament house. We saw the events hall which recently hosted a Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian and New Zealand table tennis tournament and houses the second largest tapestry in the world, and through the House of Representatives and the Senate and waving in the general direction of the Magna Carta.

Let this be a lesson to never wear branded t-shirts

Michael mid-story in the House of Reps

The House of Representatives

The Senate (the school kids on the other side answered one of Michael's questions about how many seats were needed for the balance of power!)

All along, Michael made witty jokes, incorporated baby's screams and exclamations into his stories and shared his love of our political institutions.  It was a shame that we couldn't have come through Canberra on any day other than Friday, because it would have been great to sit in on Question Time, but that will have to wait for next time. 

We had a lovely afternoon, evening and morning with our generous host Joan, who fed us till we were fit to bursting, shared her recent travel stories and told us of plans for the upcoming McDermot Christmas party.

During our whirlwind Canberra tour we also made a quick pit-stop up Black Mountain for a peek of Canberra from greater heights!

View from Black Mountain

Lovely to see Australian flowers :)

A footnote about our stop at the Big Merino in Goulburn, post-Canberra stay.  Fun facts about Australia's wool industry and the opportunity to look out of the big guy's eyes!

En route, we stopped at the Big Merino, Goulburn