Canberra – Australia’s capital

Today I took a bus from Sydney to Canberra to visit one of my friends living there. The bus ticket is relatively cheap – just $27 for the three and a half hours drive.

Canberra from above

One of the first things I did with my friend is to go up the observation deck on Canberra’s TV tower:

Canberra’s TV tower

From there we had a good view of all of Canberra, which is pretty small. The whole city was planned in advance after Australia became independent in 1901. The lake you see here was planned from the start, but it did not exist until the 1960’s.

Canberra lake

The forests you see on these pictures are all planted. After the city was founded, some 20 million (!) trees were planted over decades.

Canberra city center

Canberra on the ground

Here is a fountain in the lake between the government district and the downtown area of Canberra:

Canberra lake fountain

The city center itself is not very spectacular, at least compared to Sydney:

Canberra city center

The whole area between Sydney and Canberra is very green with many forests. There are also some small hills, so it is not completely flat.

My friend told me that the highest “mountain” in Australia is south of Canberra and just about 2 km (6000 feet) high, which is less than the 2.5 km (7000 feet) in Santa Fe, New Mexico where I live.

Australia is a very old continent, so all the mountains have been eroded through wind and rain. Some of the oldest rocks on Earth have been found in Australia.