The planned city of Canberra

We've now been in Canberra for a week, which is halfway through our sit here. Before we left Canada I had done some reading about Australia and was particularly interested in the history of the design of Canberra, the capital city of Australia. Although my primary focus in planning our sits was to stay near the coast, I was pleased to stray from that plan, to be able to see Canberra.

Greg's in the car, with our buddy Ollie in the back

One afternoon we went to Mount Ainslie, which is a great vantage point to see the layout of the city. There were plaques there, detailing the story of the development of Canberra.

This photo was taken with us standing at Mount Ainslie. The water in the middle of the photo is Lake Burley Griffin, named after the husband-and-wife designers of the city. The core of the city is designed more like the spokes of a wheel, rather than the usual grid pattern. Outside of the core, newly designed towns and villages were established, with arterial roads and open spaces, unlike the usual spread that happens as a city grows.

Driving in Canberra you'll quickly notice the frequent roundabouts (traffic circles, for those in Canada). In our week of driving, if you're not on a major road, it's rare to go more than a few hundred metres before coming to yet another roundabout. I'm adding a link here to a recent newspaper article: Is Canberra the roundabout capital of Australia? Apparently Canberra has 406 roundabout and 276 traffic lights ... and a population of less than 400,000. Thankfully Greg quickly adapted to the etiquette of roundabouts while driving on the other side of the road.

Looking at the earlier landscape photo, where there are treetops in the foreground, directly below that is the Australian War Memorial. We went for a walk on the grounds, but couldn't go into the building as we had Ollie-The-Dog with us. The grounds were interesting, with various statues and monuments.

I went to take a closer look at this one, as I couldn't see what the soldier was reaching for.

A dog - and there were two permanent water bowls behind the soldier, as part of the piece. As hot as it was that day, we couldn't get Ollie to drink from those bowls.

Looking back at the photo of the view from Mount Ainslie, the war memorial is directly below, before the start of the brick-red coloured section.

This photo was taken on the war memorial grounds, looking down towards the lake, and across the lake to Parliament House.

Maybe next week we'll venture to the other side of the lake!