Day 02 - 09/27 - Canberra - Day 1

Our plan for today was to take the #6 bus downtown and make our way to the Australian War Memorial. That we did. The bus ride was about 1/2 hour to downtown, and we walked about 1/2 hour to the War Memorial. It's an imposing structure with a very wide street stretching from the steps at the foot of the memorial at least a mile down to the lake. It's impressive.

We first took a docent tour of WWI artillery pieces, one of which was a captured large German gun which was mounted on a railroad carriage. Afterwards we spent the remainder of the day until just before 5pm when we watched the Last Post ceremony. The museum is definitely in the world class category. The exhibits are sensitive and present Australia's contribution to the many conflicts our world has faced since WWI. There are a number of airplanes on display along with a Japanese midget submarine that was destroyed in Sydney harbor. It was later recovered and the blast damage is very apparent on the center hull structure.

During the day we came across a number of very colorful birds many of which were flying in pairs which would be typical of spring. While it's in the high 40's at night, during the day it gets up into the low 70's.  

After watching the LAST POST ceremony at the Museum, we walked back to the town center and through the Canberra Centre Mall where we found a news shop to purchase a MYWAY bus card so that we don't have to worry about change on the bus but just have to tap on and tap off. It also reduces the fare by about 1/3. We used it on the bus ride home and it worked very well. In the mall (which is similar to malls in America, Japan, Europe, Canada, and the like, we found a Mexican restaurant and enjoyed a change of pace for our dinner meal.

Tomorrow our plan is to visit the National Museum which involves riding downtown on the #6 bus and then taking special free loop bus to the gallery. We'll see how that goes. Stay tuned.