Canberra

We kicked off our winter mini-break with an overnight stop in Bowral, in the Southern Highlands; about 2 hours drive from Sydney. With the cold, rain and plethora of antique shops it felt like home. A trip to the Southern Highlands must involve a stop at Joadja, our favourite winery in the region, for a couple of bottles of their 2010 Cabernet Sangiovese.

We returned to Berrida Manor, on the edge of Bowral - where Fawlty Towers meets The Shining. It once hosted the regional Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1978 and has been pretty much preserved in that state since. Facilities are modern and it's clean, but any desire to update the decor has been deliberately resisted. You either love it or hate it. I love it.

Bowral - antique shops and rain

On Sunday we continued our journey south west to Canberra - the "City of Trees" and federal capital, which celebrates its 100th birthday this year. I had expected it to be a bit like Milton Keyenes with a few museums and wineries, which was a good way to prevent being underwhelmed. Fortuntately, whilst very cold it was sunny. Canberra itself is a slightly odd place - it's really a series of diffuse suburbs surrounded by hills and bushland, with an overwhelming number of embassies and government buildings. Whilst it doesn't have much soul, it is a well designed city with some good little areas to eat or shop, and the huge man-made Lake Burley-Griffin at its centre makes for some beautiful year-round vistas. It does tourism well; everywhere we went, staff were really friendly and were falling over backwards to be helpful. We started, of course, with the wineries; Canberra is seen as one of the 'up and coming' wine making regions in the country.

Eden Road was the pick of the three wineries we visited; with three degree-qualified viticulturists and money not being a problem, all their wines are good. NSW wine regions suffered with the wet (La Nina) summers of 2011 and 2012, which means some pretty average wine around. Wineries like Eden Road would rather lower their quantities than their quality and suck up the financial hit. Their vineyards are all cool/cold climate, but with some variation due to soil and proximity to a large lake, which gives some variety to their wines. Reislings are great here (dry and off-dry) as well as cool-climate shiraz and red blends.

McKellar Ridge; a small family-run winery where we had lunch with some of the locals

View from our hotel room (Aria) in Dickson, Canberra

Our second day in Canberra was all about galleries and museums and we started off at the National Gallery. They currently have a Turner exhibition (borrowed from the Tate); although Turner isn't my cup of tea, the exhibition was accompanied by a Wedgewood English Tea pop-up bar, which certainly was.

Battenberg cake!

"I think I'll have that in my lounge" - checking out Jackson Pollock's 'Blue Poles'

The highlight of our galleries and museums day was Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly series. Nolan's child-like and ironic paintings reflect the mythology around Kelly, but without making him a hero. Nolan received a lot of stick in the art world for his work, which was deliberately subverting acceptable forms. The vibrant colours, his depiction of the bush landscape and the narrative that runs through the series make for a compelling exhibition. Click here to see more of Nolan's work.

Although parliament is not currently sitting, there was still plenty to see at Parliament House, where only some of the displays had been updated following last week's change in Prime Minister.

The House of Representatives (lower House)

Outside Parliament House

Outside Parliament House

Parliament House, where a small child nearly ran in to my ear

Old Parliament House is now the Australian Museum of Democracy, where you can sit in the old House of Reps and the Senate, used in the first decades following the founding of Canberra in 1913.

The Senate, Old Parliament House

Old Parliament House

Outside Old Parliament House stands the Aboriginal Tent Embassy; a controversial semi-permanent building that has been the focal point for the campaign for Indigenous rights ever since it was first established in 1972. 

Next was the Australian National History Museum. A really well curated, interactive museum which is great for kids. We were a bit museumed out by this state, and it is clearly targeted at an Australian audience as some of the significance was lost on me (e.g the first ever Holden car to come off the assembly block is venerated like the Turin Shroud). More excitingly for me though, it was an opportunity to remind Gillian of her roots:

All very familiar.

Last stop on Tuesday morning was the Australian War Memorial; a large museum and memorial to those who have given their lives for Australia. In the Second World War, Australia was the most mobilised country in the Allies; 1/7 of the population was enlisted.

Parliament House as seen from the War Memorial

A statue immortalising Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick - known to many whose lives he saved simply as "the man with the donkey", he rescued dozens of injured comrades from the frontline in Gallipoli. He was eventually killed by machine gun fire in 1915.