Week 4 contained the Christmas Eve and the Chrismas Day. It was a bit confused to celebrate or not celebrate this Christian festival without cold weather, families and relatives. Of course, we cooked a delicious meal for Chrismas Eve, but we are always cooking tasty dinners 🙂 We both resign to offer some extra gifts because we received some presents from our birthdays recently.

I intended to do Advanced exam next March, so I have to practice my grammatical skills. Therefore, I tried to include some extra rules in my Blog (either in the introduction or in the descriptions/ recommendations below). So, don’t be surprised if you find some special phrases or words.

–> Like always check our map here!

Route

Day 25: Stay in Sydney (museums day)

Day 26: Sydney – Canberra

Day 27: Stay in Canberra

Day 28: Canberra – Cann River

Day 29: Can River – Tidal River

Day 30: Tidal River – Balnarring

Day 31: Stay in Balnarring

special recommendations

Museum of Australia in Canberra

The Museum of Australia was one of the best museums I’ve ever visited. It’s very modern and displays the two histories of Australia, the days after the British Colonisation and the time before with Aborigine’s. There is also a lot of information about the ill-treatments and problems between the white population and the native people.

The building symbolises the close relationship between these two histories with a distinctive shape like a knot – one cord for each part. The museum contains several galleries with different topics from emotional stories about famous or unique people to the apologies-speech of the Australian Prime Minister.

We highly recommend a guided tour, as we did. In that way, it’s much easier to understand the symbolic of the architecture and the organisation of the exhibition.

House of Parliament in Canberra

As politicians, it was obvious to make a visit to Parliament Hause. Canberra is the capital of Australia as well as the smallest state in Australia (size = Kanton St. Gallen). Canberra is additionally the home of the national parliament. The architecture is very modern and full of symbolic artifacts. Every pillar in the entrance hall was made to tell you a story. Like the museum, this building is more than a place for making decisions – it’s a locality full of representative objects.

We did a guided tour and we were showed the relevant rooms like the chamber of the senate as well as the hall for the “normal” representatives. The Australien representative Democracy practice is developed from the British and the American political Systems – that’s why they like to call it the “Washminster-System”. The whole building is made for the daily political works along with the needs for visitors. There are two cafes, a parliament shop, several exhibitions objects and about 5 tours for tourists (every day except Chrismas Day).

Sunset in Tidal River

As we said in the video, we aren’t very early birds. Of this reasons, we were looking forward to get the opportunity to enjoy a lovely sunset at the beach in a the south national park near Melbourne. The national park is located on a peninsula and contains a lot of hiking trails, small creeks and beautiful beaches. We spent there only one night (high season, late booking) and took fully pleasure of the nature experience. We saw one wallaby during the sunset and one wombat.

Stay in an Airbnb as a welcome change from the camper life

After 30 days in a narrow campervan, to spend two nights in a large bed with a close bathroom and enough space for everything was an extremely relaxing experience. At first, this idea was only an urgent night stay, because all the campsites were already fully booked. Yes, that can happen in the high, high season in Australia. But at least, we would definitely repeat this practice – it is absolutely recommended for everyone who indents to spend a longer time on wheels.

Schwiizerdütschi Zämefassig

Wiehnachte am Strand, am Mittag 35 Grad – strange aber schön!