Travel Log: Australia Road Trip, Canberra

I hope you are enjoying my Australia road trip series of travel logs! We had such a great time visiting the Land Down Under over the Christmas and New Year holidays with a group of dear friends, and it has been so much fun to recap our journey here on the blog (you can read my first post on the Twelve Apostles/Great Ocean Road here, and second post on Melbourne here). Today's post is all about Australia's capital Canberra, which was chosen because of its physical location between the two largest cities Melbourne and Sydney. We had one afternoon and evening to spend in Canberra, which was just enough time to take a tour of the Parliament building and grill an awesome dinner feast at a local park. Please read on for photos and more details of our time in Australia's capital city of Canberra.

 Pants: old, similar here or here
Top: no longer available, similar here or here
Wedge Sandals: exact here
Necklace: exact here
Crossbody Bag: old, similar here or splurge on this one
Sunglasses: exact here

We joined a free tour where we learned a bit about the Australian Parliamentary System with its Senate and House of Representatives (and of course the Queen). I had not realized prior to this tour that the Australian government structure was influenced by the United States structure! The building itself was designed by a United States based firm with 4,700 rooms including the Senate and the House of Representatives, each with their own distinct color schemes.

The House of Representatives has a green color scheme, a nod to the deeper shade of green in the UK's House of Commons. In Canberra, however, the Parliament House designers chose a lighter "gum tree" green to match the local Eucalyptus tree leaves. I thought that was really cool!

The Senate has a red color scheme in honor of the UK Parliament's House of Lords red color scheme, but the shade was also adapted locally using shades of ochre red as seen in the earth in the Australian bush.

Speaking of the color red, we also had to stop for a few photos along this beautiful poppy wall in the Parliament House Marble Foyer. This wall contains thousands of handmade fabric poppies created for Remembrance Day, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. I am so glad we had a chance to see this beautiful art installation!

Just for fun, I had to include photos of this lego model of the Parliament House! The detail was incredible, down to the people sitting inside the House of Representatives and Senate. So cute!

Later that afternoon, we drove to a local park to grill and enjoy a beautiful evening. The sunset was absolutely gorgeous, and relaxing in this peaceful setting was a perfect way to end our day in Canberra.

I hope you enjoyed this peek into our visit to Canberra. I know that there is much more to do in this city, but I am happy that we had a chance to spend a bit of time in Australia's capital. Be sure to check back for more travel logs soon, with Sydney and Byron Bay still to come. Thank you for visiting my blog today, and I hope you have a fabulous rest of your week!

Linking up with Curly Crafty Mom, On the Daily Express, Nancy's Fashion Style, Straight A Style