Second day in Canberra. My targets today are National Botanic Gardens and Australian War Memorial. Gardens are huge (at least they seem to be on the map) and quite some distance from the city, so walking is not the best option. I would be so exhausted by the time I get there it will take a beer or two to recover.
So I decided I will rent a bike and ride there. In my hotel earlier I found a flier of Bike Hire company named Mr. Spokes and located not far from the city. I took a bus from the hotel to the city as usual and had a nice morning walk to the bike hire point, eating my breakfast on the way.
To rent a bike costs 35 dollars for the whole day. A bit pricey, but there are little alternatives (I have not seen any). A guy who gave me the bike seemed to be in hurry. "Here's your bike, now here's you helmet, off you go!" "Wait, how do shift gears?" "Ah, right, you turn this thing here to gear up and back to gear down, and you'll be fine!" "Hey, wait, are there any rules that I need to know?" "What, rules? What rules? Ah, rules! Yeah, just keep on the left and you'll be fine!" "Wait, and where's my lock?" "Ah, the lock! Here's your lock, combination is 1188 and you'll be fine" And so, before I could cry "wait" he disappeared. Anyway, I kept on the left, obeyed traffic signals and safely arrived at National Botanic Gardens.
It is worth to mention that is anything is labeled "National" in Canberra it does not necessarily mean that it is the best, biggest, or otherwise superior to any other similar thing in the whole Australia. It is labeled "National" simply because it happened to reside in the nation's capital.
That said, National Botanic Gardens in Canberra turned out to be really big not only on the map. They are much less civilized and much more bush-like than Sydney's. Entrance is free, so is the self-guide leaflet. Main path loop is conveniently marked on the map and is said to take 40 mins to 1 hour, and I happily follow it, though, as I found out later, in the wrong direction.
First I went into a "Rain Forest" section which features relatively cool climate with a lot of shade, and boasted to be looking exactly as rainforests looked like thousands years ago. Well, I find it very hard to believe, but as I said, entrance is free so I can not ask for my money back. The rest of the gardens were more typical eucalyptus bush-land - sunny, hot and dry. I longed for an ice cream, but the only people I saw were gardeners, so they probably removed ice-cream kiosks due to lack of customers.
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| Rock garden |
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| Some flowers |
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| Eucalyptus lawn |
After about an hour, the main path is over and, with some relief, I say good buy to National Botanic Gardens. Surprised to see it still there, I unlock my bike and ride down to the main bike path. According to a guide-board, there are three main bike routes around Burley Griffin lake, and I decide to take the longest one, which is said to take one hour. Being experienced biker (I try to ride a bike at least once a year), I think it would take me much less than an hour. I could not be much more mistaken. It took me about one hour and 15 minutes, the path going through hilly terrain (at one point I was so exhausted, I had to walk my bike uphill, and when other bikers swept past I pretended I was doing up my shoelaces.
Anyway, the views were awesome, and eventually I was on Anzac Parade, which is a really wide and long boulevard which ends with Australian War Memorial.
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| View of Anzac parade and AWM from the other side of lake Burley Griffin. |
Memorial itself is absolutely amazing. The free guided tour started soon after my arrival, and the guide was really good. Apart from the memorial, there is also a war museum, featuring history articles and items from WWI, WWII and others (Vietnam, Korea, etc). It all ended with a short film about bomber named
"G for George" made by Peter Jackson (yes, of the Lord of the Rings fame), who is one of the sponsors for AWM.
If it was not the time to return the bike, I would happily browse the museum for some time more.
I returned the bike, forgot to return the helmet, was reminded of that, returned the helmet and went straight to the King O'Malley pub for a refreshment drink.
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