Left Jervis Bay after a cool night & a cool morning , passing through lots more little coastal places on side roads, too numerous to stop at them all. Also lots & lots of lakes. We were heading for Bateman's Bay further down the south coast where we stopped for morning tea. Again there is a connection to the navy in this area in that they have holiday cabins here for naval staff. It's a pretty little bay with a river running into it on the edge of town, & is very popular for fishing, both recreational & commercial. Consequently it has a little 'port' which had a number of quite sizeable fishing boats at anchor. Just a little south of Bateman's we turned inland onto the Kings Highway in the direction of Canberra. The surrounding landscape changed quite a bit to rolling hills not quite so green as we had earlier experienced. Obviously not so much rain in that area. Despite our research, it was very difficult to find a caravan park in Canberra, so we opted to head for Queanbeyan, about 5 minutes south-east of the city. However, on arrival we discovered there was 'no room at the inn'. In actual fact we were both quite pleased as we weren't very impressed with it as it was in the middle of a residential area & very small with difficult access & small sites. After several phone calls we found a vacancy at another park about 20 minutes north of the city. This proved to be a much better option as it was very rural, nice family park, very quiet & good facilities at a reasonable price ($25 powered site). Next morning we drove to the i-site on the outskirts of Canberra to get information about what to see, hoping that we could cycle rather than drive. It is a marvellous place to do just that, with cycle tracks on almost every road in the city, plus many offroad tracks for recreational cycling. At first I was very nervous about cycling on the road bit, but it really is a breeze & quite safe. The driver's are all very cycle conscious & most polite, so give way to you if you are crossing a road where there are no lights & they are turning. We visited the National Gallery of Australia which was really interesting, some amazing old paintings by some of the old masters like Matisse, Gaughin, Monet etc. Also a lot of VERY modern abstracts, which we were rather scathing about, but our favourites were the Australian landscapes which were very good & also the indigenous art. All a matter of taste of course. Next to the Gallery was a lakeside park full of the most interesting sculptures by artists around the world, including a 'fog' garden & I found it lovely to watch the passing children & their fascination with it. We felt we had done our 'cultured' bit by then, so next was the political bit, when we visited Capital Hill. Next was the recreational part, so we cycled right around Lake Burley Griffin, a distance of 35km which I enjoyed until the last quarter which became quite hilly though Stuart had no problem. Most of the ride was gently shaded by autumn trees which were just changing into their autumn apparel. Apparently they are a bit late this year as it's been so warm in this area. It had become quite hot by then after a very cool start to the day. The nights here are quite cool too at present. Canberra really is a lovely city, so pristine, but all very new looking so no real character in our opinion. However, it has parks everywhere & so many people cycling & Lake Burley Griffin is obviously a wonderful water playground. We saw dragonboating, yachting, pedalboats, kayaks, & dinghies. They are obviously very fitness minded, as all around the lakes there are exercise 'posts', some for situps, pushups, stepups, body curls, etc, etc. Naturally we did them all!!! All in all we had an enjoyable day & had we not had a commitment to get to join our cycling group, would like to have stayed longer & seen more.
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