Canberra, Australia

Canberra is Australia’s capital city, so while I’m housesitting here I have the opportunity to visit Parliament House to watch our parliament in action – and that’s not always a pretty sight.  But before I go into that, I'll give some context: a quick reminder about what our parliament is.  Australians should already know about this – although I have my own slant on it – but they probably don’t; and non-Australian readers will need this tiny bit of background before I talk about my visit to our federal parliament.

Canberra is a totally planned city designed by the landscape architect Walter Burley Griffin.  Before the city was built the area where it now stands was mostly two large sheep stations, Yarralumla and Duntroon.  This blank canvas enabled Canberra to be designed with areas of open country, which results in a spread-out city with integrated areas of bushland.  This is ideal for urban bushwalking, and means that I can go on a nice bushwalk straight from my front door!

My house-sit in Canberra includes the occasional house-sit at the house-owner family’s beach house at Tuross Head, on the adjacent coastline.  Tuross Head is a small coastal village on the south coast of New South Wales on the beautiful east coast of Australia, about 270 kilometres south of Sydney.  Because it’s on the closest adjacent coast to Canberra, it's a popular place for Canberrans’ beach houses.