Only had from the late afternoon of Saturday 12/20 until the next morning when I cycled away to check out Canberra, but it was a great visit.
I'll describe it in terms of the photos below. With the hour or so before they closed at 5pm on Saturday I walked over to the Australian War Memorial museum. The displays inside (decorated uniform jacket and WWII V1 buzz bomb) were very interesting--as with most museums one could spend several days in there.
Also interesting was that when they built Canberra from scratch (in the 1940's I think) pretty much in the middle of nowhere but about half way between Sydney and Melbourne on purpose, they modelled it somewhat on Washington DC. Except in this case with Parliament House(s) and the war museum at either end of a beautiful mall type area. The last four photos show this setup. From north to south, there is war museum (first shot at far end), then long mall, then new Old Parlament Building (seen as lighter white bldg in first, second, and fourth shots), then new Parlament building (third shot). As in Washington, quite a spectacular layout.
Finally, mostly by luck (though I knew ahead of time it was working out this way), I happened to make my short visit to the capital on the weekend. Thus as I said, except for the museum I did my sightseeing early on Sunday morning, which was great. There were literally no cars or people on the malls, sidewalks, etc. around Parlament circle as they call it. It made wandering around somewhat aimlessly and shooting photos hither and yon on my bicycle much easier (and safer). I was well on my way out of town before any semblance of traffic or people started to come out.
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