Wall of Fallen Soldiers, ANZAC Memorial and view of Australian Parliament from ANZAC Memorial, Canberra.

The next day, we left Sydney and headed for Canberra for the night. On the way there, passed Lake George, marked in blue on the roadmap, but dry for 30 years and really an expansive meadow surrounded by mountains. Canberra itself is a weird place, apparently laid out as an ideal city, with hubs of commerce and entertainment, main streets radiating from the centre, and side avenues forming concentric circles around the hub. Everything is new. Kinda brutal, because all the streets look the same and are perpetually veering to the left. Or right. The problem is that it's cold here (I was rather impressed!), non-coastal, and has nothing to do. Since it was simply created as opposed to growing organically from a spot where people actually wanted to congregate, it has no organic soul. Like a good plan on paper, the designer didn't consider people actually living here - just the efficiency of the city. Daily routines consist of governing, museums, university, and apparently some decent mountain biking. It feels like a giant urban park, since buildings are somewhat scarce and separated by huge green spaces, and people stay indoors, travel by cars, or simply aren't there. For some reason, our hotel was packed.

We checked out the ANZAC Memorial, which has a series of dioramas depicting the many battles and war conditions experienced by the Army Corps over the years. A couple of things which struck me were the long walls of names (and room for more), as well as one of the boats used in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign on April 25th, 1915, the hull shredded with bulletholes.

This set the mood to something a bit too contemplative for a couple of idiots, so after about an hour, we bailed on Canberra, and started the 650km trek to Melbourne.