Canberra - The Capital city in 3 Days -3 Adults under 750 AUD
I planned this trip for the Queens birthday long weekend in June as a getaway from Sydney which is where I live. Yes! that’s right, apparently I chose winter month to visit one of the top coldest city in Australia. I travelled with my parents in this trip that I could say one beautiful and a peaceful memory of mine which I will cherish forever. If you are pretty sure on this trip , I would highly advise you to consider this booking at least 2 weeks before , this is where you can save the most. I planned three weeks before and was starting to look into accommodation first as it usually gets busier and even costlier when there is an upcoming long weekend.
Accommodation
Looked for a decent private accommodation in Booking.com and I found one in Canberra YHA (The Village Canberra) . It was a twin room with private bathroom , however we had 1 double bed and 2 single beds which can even accommodate a family of 4 adults . This was one good shot I could take while making reservations in this website as it has the option of reservations with Free cancellation policy until the day of check in. So you just have to find time to block this accommodation with no initial money transaction. When I reserved this, the cost came up to 196.20 AUD for two nights which is a good deal with no upfront pay.
Transport
Now if you have your own vehicle, you can drive for not more than 4 hours . So you may have to pay for the fuel price and in addition you may have to look for an accommodation with parking space. Of course it does have its benefits of comfort. In my case, I booked a coach with Greyhound for 3 adults and the return ticket costed 270 AUD .
Day Wise Itinerary
Day 1 : We started the day1 from Sydney morning at 5:30 am . The coach departed from Sydney Central at 6:30 am and we were supposed to reach the Canberra city at 10:15 am , with delays in between due to passenger pick up we arrived at around 11:30 am . It was a cold day. The accommodation check in was at 2:00 pm and it was not far from the Greyhound coach bay .
As we are going to rely on public transport for this entire trip, I purchased a travel Card (Its called as My Way card) . This will only be available in news agency store. The card has 5 AUD deposit . I purchased 3 cards with 20 AUD top up in each. We first took the bus from the nearest bus stop less than 20 metre from the coach bay to the hostel. I should say this was an ideal spot to stay if you are simply visiting Canberra to explore the tourist spots as it was pretty accessible with frequent buses for every 5 minutes. Most of the places that we will cover are all in closer proximity to each other. As we have 2 hours for our check-in time , we stored our bags in the locker of the Hostel, had a quick breakfast that we packed in the morning and headed off for the day.
Parliament House
Entry : Free
Took the bus and reached Parliament House , which is open everyday except for Christmas Day. I should say it was a goose bump moment for me when I saw the Senate Chamber, the House of representative Chamber and the architecture of the building. There are free guided tours available in the building at timed slots, which you can join if you are more interested in the history. Spent 2 hours here and by the time we finished , it was noon. There is a restaurant inside this Parliament House where we had the lunch.
Museum of Australian Democracy
Entry : Free
Then we walked to Old Parliament House (now known as Museum of Australian Democracy) around 6-8 minutes walk. This is a building not to be missed if you are into History. You will be amazed to see how Australian Government offices and Government servant work place and culture looks like. Key ones to highlight are, you can see the suite of Prime Minister , Senate Chambers and press conference rooms . Spent around 2 hours to complete the walk in this building. You will be provided a building map guide at the entrance.
It was 4:30 PM , took bus from the nearest bus stop and reached our Accommodation. Travel time between this location to the Accommodation was 5 min bus travel, one stop. It was a long day hence we decided to rest up for the rest of the day and with winters its also an an early sunset.
Day 2
National Gallery of Australia
Entry : Free
Had some yummy Avocado toast for breakfast , headed off for the day . Took the bus and reached NGA , which is the largest art museum in Australia. The museum opens at 10:00 am as we arrived early , we took a short walk along the Lake Burley . It was beautiful with trees filled with autumn colours although it was end of Autumn . Spent about an hour in the museum, seeing the Aboriginal arts in Bamboo and their culture.
National Portrait Gallery
Entry : Free
This is again less than 5 minutes walk from the National Gallery of Australia , there is also a way where you can straight walk to National Portrait Gallery Building from the art building. You get to see beautiful Portraits of sportsmen, leaders , writers etc. Some days there are exclusive art exhibition in addition to these for which there may be an entry fee.
National Library of Australia
Entry : Free
In another 2 minutes walk you will see this National Library of Australia. When we went , there was an exhibition in this Library which we were allowed to see or otherwise have a walk around this building.All the above places are within the same perimeter and if you have time you can also cover couple of more buildings in this area like National Science and Technology Centre (Questacon) , High Court of Australia.
Last Post Ceremony in Australia War Memorial
Entry : Free but booking is essential
This is one of the iconic and a must visit place in this whole Canberra trip which you can never miss. We need to take a bus again from near to National Library of Australia to Australia War Memorial. The memorial has Galleries and in addition this a ceremony held at 4:30PM everyday. You need to pre book this session else its hard to find a slot on arrival. I had booked this ticket the night of day before. The ceremony was held in the Commemorative courtyard , everyday a story of one of the individual from the Roll of Honour was shared. Family members of the individual was invited to pay respect. This was very heart touching and indeed an emotional moment. Finally the ceremony ended with Australian Anthem. With that we take the bus back to our stay.
Day 3
Gallery of Australia War Memorial
Entry : Free but booking is essential
Last day of the trip, we checkout out of the hostel and left to Australia War memorial by bus for visiting the Gallery that we booked slots at 11:00am. This one tops the bucket list of Canberra and yet I chose to keep on the last day of the Itinerary so there is not a rush to visit anything else. The gallery was split into two halls, one for First World War and the other for Second World War .
You can see the involvement of Australia in these war period with displays of the war equipment’s , instruments, suits including the messages passed between the soldiers, transcripts etc. We were awestruck and am sure you will too. Finally moved up to the Commemorative courtyard of the memorial and you will see the Roll of Honour on both the sides, engraved with the individual names with flowers. It was 1:00PM and there was a restaurant inside where we had our lunch for the day with more than 4 hours left for our returning Coach.
Memorial of Captain Cook , water jet - Lake Burley Griffin
Entry : Free
We decided to stroll around the Lake Burley Griffin where the memorial of Captain Cook is located inaugurated by Queen Elizabeth II. There is also Captain cook memorial water jet located in the lake that pumps water unto 250 litres per second at a height of 183 metres. This operates daily between 11:00 am to 2:00 pm. Chilled out here for couple of hours, there was also some Cherry blossoms trees here.
Things you need to know
You have the Canberra Centre, which is a shopping mall walkable from the Accommodation, it has Coles , Aldi and other retail shops. So if you want to quickly grab a bread , milk, fruits or snacks , Friday night - its open longer hours so you can stock things ahead for your trip.
All the national museum mentioned above will have a self locker place to store your bags that is bigger in size. You will also not be allowed to take selfie sticks along with you in these galleries. You can still take cameras / Go Pro.
Bookings for Australian War memorial Gallery and Last Post Ceremony usually runs out for weekends. So you need to make this booking first well before. You don’t want to miss this.
There is also beam / neuron electric bikes that you can find in every street in Canberra city. You can opt this option if you are a solo traveller or travelling as a couple and you can purchase a 3 day pass from the app so you can jus ride along the places as its all close by.
Expenditure for 3 Adults
| Transport | Accomodation | Food |
|---|---|---|
| 345 AUD | 196.20 AUD | 200 AUD |
And the trip ends with a dinner near by in a local restaurant and boarded our return coach scheduled to depart at 6:20 pm . It was a safe journey and we arrived at Sydney central at 9:45 pm.
I hope you find this interesting. Please leave your comment below if you found this helpful. Share your insights , happy to hear your thoughts
Have a nice trip ahead :)