We were lucky enough to have a visitor from home for a couple of weeks! We packed in so much in two and a half weeks that I don’t think it would all fit on one blog post, especially when you add pictures too. Therefore I have split it up into smaller chunks; this is post 3 of 5, so if you haven’t already read the first parts, then I recommend visiting those posts first: Part 1; Part 2.
The journey from Young to Canberra was another wet one, and coupled with the pot-holed roads it wasn’t the most comfortable ever! But we got there in one piece, and headed straight to the Parliament House. We explored where we could, then had a nice lunch in the Queen’s Terrace Cafe.
We had 2:30pm timed tickets booked for the Australian War Memorial. We could have spent another couple of hours in the museum there, but we were kicked out at 4:30pm they were closing. We checked into our accommodation for the evening, an apartment in the Adina Hotel in Braddon. The location was better than we could have hoped, with plenty of bars and restaurants nearby, and a short walk to the city centre.
So after a rest and a freshen up, we wandered to a bar we had spotted on the drive in – the Bentspoke Brew Pub. We sampled some of their beer before ambling down past the restaurants to pick somewhere to eat. It was a Friday night, and it was busy and we probably should have booked somewhere, but nevertheless we found a great tapas restaurant with room for us. The Tipsy Bull was a bit pricey, but the food was fantastic, the service amazing and the gin menu was the biggest I have seen in Australia! The whole experience was incredible, and it even stopped raining for us!
We passed Bentspoke again on route back to the apartment, so thought it would be rude not to try another one or two of their beers, while we made plans for the next day.
The forecast for the Saturday was dry in the morning, more rain in the afternoon, so we made the most of the dry weather to explore a bit of Canberra on foot.
We started with breakfast at Oliver Brown in the city centre where they serve a delicious spoonful of chocolate buttons with the coffee.
We meandered through the shopping centre, passed the ACT Memorial, across Civic square to the theatre, and over to Civic Hill, where every step we took disturbed a rabbit or two! It also afforded us a decent view over the lake to the parliament.
We headed back to the car, stopping for a coffee at Gus’ Place, and then drove up to Mount Ainslie lookout for an even better view of the city.
Next stop was the Manuka Oval which, disappointingly, we weren’t able to get into but we just about managed to catch a glimpse by walking the perimeter of the grounds.
The rain was coming in again, so after a quick stop at Queanbeyan Shopping Centre for drinks and snacks and to view a potential shop site, we started our drive to Bowral.
Our visitor was starting to believe that there weren’t really kangaroos everywhere in Australia when, luckly, we drove past a couple of mobs of them! Unfortunately they were in fields close to the highway which meant we were going too fast to stop and take pictures, but at least we weren’t about to hit them!
We drove past Lake George which ordinarily would be beautiful, but we could hardly see it through the deluge! We got to Bowral and found found our accommodation. It was a bit further out of town than we would have liked, so that, combined with the continuing rainfall, prompted our decision to pop to the closest supermarket then bunker down for the evening. We cooked dinner, had some nice wine, and failed to build a fire several times…
On Sunday we got up at a reasonable time, had breakfast at our cottage before checking out, and then went to the Bradman Museum.
For someone who isn’t a particular fan of cricket, it was a great museum, let alone for the cricket fanatic we were with! There was something for everyone and was multi-media so there wasn’t just a lot of reading to do. Afterwards we walked around the Bradman Oval, found Don Bradman’s houses that he lived in nearby and did a small part of the Brandman trail around the town. All in all, it probably took around three hours.
Once we had had our fill of everything Bradman, we drove into the centre of Bowral. It is a pretty town with lots of boutique shops, and we stumbled upon Cheese etc for lunch, lured in by the sign promising cheese toasties. After our delicious food, we walked back down the main street but as it was 3pm the shops were starting to close for the day.
So we jumped back in the car and headed to Berrima, a Georgian town about 15 minutes away. We enjoyed a walk through the village centre, and there were impressive buildings including the Peppergreen Estate cellar door, the courthouse and the correctional centre! It was even more pleasant because the sun was shining, but we couldn’t linger for too long – Sydney was calling once again!
Click here to head to part 4!
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