365: Week 3 & 4

First up, sorry for being a bit MIA recently. I've been away for a holiday with my family for two weeks to Sydney and Merimbula. Although I asked to stay at places that had wifi, we had a very small limit per day that I needed to use primarily for my college course work as I'm taking a couple of summer subjects.

It was nice to get away for a little while, although it didn't feel like much of a holiday with all of the studying I was doing. I really enjoyed staying in Canberra more than Merimbula. Every night I went for a jog along the lake in Canberra and the water was amazing, it moved like silk and reflected the colours of the sunset.

Anyway, here are a few holiday snaps that I took as part of my 365 project!

Above is day 13: Our first night in Canberra and the sun setting on the National Library




Day 14: The golden sunsets were my favourite thing about Canberra.

Day 15: There were so many gorgeous swans that waddled along the shores of the lake. They were so friendly and I had about seven all gathered around me at one stage. They were very curious about my camera.

Day 16: Canberra is really interesting in the way it is set out. There are three axis lines that the city is built upon that make a giant triangle. The main axis runs from The War Memorial which is behind me in this photo, all the way through Old Parliament House and the new one behind it.

Day 17: We visited Telstra Tower which is on the top of Black Mountain. I drove all the way up and it was actually pretty scary as it's a really steep ascent. The views were amazing though and we were some of the only people on the tower at the time.

Day 18: A silly photograph I took of the sky by accident. I was playing around with the settings on my camera and took a photo and boom this happened. It's not technically correct but I kind of really like it.

Day 19: We saw an exhibition about how cartographers drew and created maps at the National Library. It was really fascinating and they had some amazing maps from the 1500s that looked more like artworks. Did you know that they used to draw maps upside down, so they would be south to north rather than north to south?! One of my favourite maps was drawn this way and it was really fun to try and guess the countries.

Day 20: Who can go to Canberra without visiting Questacon?! I felt like I was a bit old for this but it was fun walking through all of the interactive science exhibitions again. My favourite activities are the earthquake house, the man made lightening and the vertical slide!

Day 21: We visited the War Memorial over a couple of days because it is absolutely humongous and there's only so much war history one can digest in a day. My favourite part has always been the tomb of the unknown soldier. It's one of the most breathtaking sights as the walls are covered in tiny mosaics. The whole room has an ethereal quality that is incredibly spiritual. When you look up, you see the above mosaic inside a magnificent dome. I cannot imagine what the cathedrals in Europe must be like compared to this as I found this overwhelming. I'll probably cry at the sheer magnificence of those paintings at the sistine chapel when I go one day.

Day 22: We placed a poppy by my great aunt's name. I am named after her and it's honestly such an honour to carry her name. She was a nurse during the second world war and died when her ship was bombed. She was last seen comforting children on a raft that was drifting out to sea. Some of her co-workers washed ashore and they were all gunned to death except for one. There is a beautiful area in the WWII section of the War Memorial dedicated to all the women who died.



Day 23: There were so many poppies. I really loved the colours of the flowers against the wall and how the red faded over time.



Day 24: We visited a wildlife sanctuary where we saw echidnas, dingoes and we got to feed some very sleepy kangaroos. We spied a peacock roaming around just before we were leaving. Every holiday we seem to go to a wildlife sanctuary, it's kind of become a little tradition.



Day 25: A photograph I took of Bethany (Cait's younger sister) while we were visiting Wangaratta



Day 26: I miss sunsets like these. I used to sit in our treehouse and watch the sun go down during the summer time while reading a book. I miss being able to do that.