10 Jan: Canberra (ACT).

The day started out on a little adventure near McD's house early to see some kangaroos "in the wild" (aka not in a zoo). We had to get up early since they tend to be up and hopping around at dawn and dusk. So off we went to find them in a local park about 3 miles from the house. As luck would have it, we not only found a few but we saw one with a joey in it! Wow! What a score! What a "benny" of staying with locals who know this stuff!

View from Parliament building down ANZAC Parade

As noted yesterday, Canberra is a great place to tour around by bicycle. Loads and loads of paved bike paths. Our hosts generously loaned us their bikes and gave us some ideas for touring around. They live by a lake, which is about a 20 mile flat loop. +Marc and I knew that it would be warm for us relatively speaking, but we knew if we were going to tour around, today was the day to do it as the temps are slated to climb tomorrow.

Kinda like the opposite of Seattle's annual bike event in January known as 'Chilly Hilly', right +Keith? :-)

Crest of Australia: Kangaroo on the left and Emu on the right

We had a light breakfast and went off. First stop was the Parliament building in the Parliamentary Zone of the city, where many of the government buildings reside. Since it is summer holidays here in Australia, Parliament was not in session but it was still open for looking around. The building is relatively new and we got to see both chambers plus a nice viewing spot down the long avenue known as ANZAC Parade. We learned some interesting tidbits like the crest of Australia on Parliament and other government buildings has a kangaroo and an emu on it because it indicates 'forwards'. Neither one of those animals can move backwards, so it is a metaphor for the country always moving forward. Interesting.

Cool displays of Olympic athletes near the Museum of Sport

After Parliament, we continued on our bikes over to the ANZAC War Memorial, which was an actual museum compared to the memorial we saw in Sydney a couple of weeks ago. It was very informative and well thought out. Much of the focus was on WW1 and WW2, and while the extent of most Americans education about those wars tends to focus on Europe, Pearl Harbor and the atomic bombs in Japan, the museum covered a lot more about the battles being fought in the Pacific. Lots to learn and much sacrifice by the Australian Military Forces. For my friends who work at Boeing, you will be happy to know that they are a major sponsor of the museum (which is why you were tagged in this note).

ANZAC War Memorial - incredibly informative museum in Canberra

Grabbed some lunch and continued on the loop towards the museum that Ashley, +Christine's (aka McD) husband, recommended - the National Museum of Australia. This was comprehensive in covering prehistoric times, indigenous settlers (Aborigines and residents of the Torres Strait Islands) and through current days. The only thing that made this museum challenging was that it was free-form and no real pattern to work through the extensive material they had on hand, so you weren't sure if you were missing certain exhibits. That said, much was learned about the evolution of the land and the people of Australia.

Sunset over Canberra

We headed back out on the bikes and it was pretty warm, but we got in 20.4 miles. McD hosted a BBQ for us with another family in attendance, which was a lot of fun. One of them was a runner who was from Lausanne, Switzerland, and she let out a hearty laugh when I told her of plans to run Marathon du Medoc with my friend, Tricia, in 2014. Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate!! All in all, a great day in Canberra (they pronounce it Can-burra).