Sydney via Canberra

[rainbowgirl]

Is anyone interested in hearing about a family road trip to Sydney via Canberra and then back to Melbourne? I'm considering trying out the tablet version of the new forum format.

 

[VPS]

Of course - you never know there might be a nugget of gold in there and I enjoyed your Mildura trip report - go for it if you can

 

[rainbowgirl]

Thanks VPS, I will give it a go. It's been over 20 years since I've followed the Hume Highway into NSW. It's changed so much. The road has been upgraded so it no longer goes through towns and you can even drive beside Albury instead of through it.

We're staying a few nights at the Mercure Canberra. 2 adults and 2 children in a king loft room. If anyone has feedback on the hotel, please let me know.

 

[Denali]

Love a road trip report.... It's what inspired us to do the Painted silo trail last year

 

[rainbowgirl]

We're planning to go to New Parliament house. I'm worried about all the security checks. I carry around a large backpack but I think I'll have to swap to a handbag for this venue.

 

[Lord_Lenny]

We're staying a few nights at the Mercure Canberra. 2 adults and 2 children in a king loft room. If anyone has feedback on the hotel, please let me know.

My wife and I stayed here for a weekend for my birthday in 2016, we drove Sydney - Canberra for the Versailles exhibition at the NGA, and then went to the Zoo the next day.

It was quite nice, there was a wedding in the grounds the day we arrived, very friendly front desk staff, they organised a free upgrade from a standard to a Loft room as it was my birthday...and there had been a mix up with a wedding guests accessibility requirements. Loft room will be fine, the kids will sleep on roll out beds downstairs and you'll have your space in the loft.

The restaurant was very nice, modern Australian type food, nothing earth shattering, but nicely done. The bar was also decent food/drink. Haven't stayed there since, but unless it's changed dramatically I'd recommend it.

 

[Hvr]

We're planning to go to New Parliament house.

Have a look here:
Behind the Scenes at Parliament House – Parliament of Australia

If I remember correctly you have a child(ren) with special needs. It may be worthwhile calling ahead to find out exactly what is required and how to prepare ahead. They may even assist you to plan a tour that will give you all a wonderful overview of the site and not be stressful.

Look forward to hearing how it goes.

 

[rainbowgirl]

This is the exhibition we came to see at the NGA. Thanks for your thoughts on the hotel.

 

[rainbowgirl]

Have a look here:
Behind the Scenes at Parliament House – Parliament of Australia

If I remember correctly you have a child(ren) with special needs. It may be worthwhile calling ahead to find out exactly what is required and how to prepare ahead. They may even assist you to plan a tour that will give you all a wonderful overview of the site and not be stressful.

Look forward to hearing how it goes.

We ended up doing the standard tour. The logistics of the behind the scenes tour didn't work for our family. Thanks for your thoughts. I ended up taking a handbag instead of the backpack and got through security really quickly. Luckily we arrived early in the day.

 

[Lord_Lenny]

View attachment 161294
This is the exhibition we came to see at the NGA. Thanks for your thoughts on the hotel.

And we were down in March to see that as well!! Lady Lenny is a big fan of the pre-raphaelites

 

[Wanderlust_tim]

View attachment 161294
This is the exhibition we came to see at the NGA. Thanks for your thoughts on the hotel.

We visited last weekend and loved it. Particularly the work section and subsequently the landscapes behind it. I would love to see modern interpretations of each place, particularly the landscapes in the Middle East.

 

[Major]

When I saw the TR title I just had to follow along. We normally head down the Newell so the Hume experience should be interesting

 

[love_the_life]

And we were down in March to see that as well!! Lady Lenny is a big fan of the pre-raphaelites

We popped across a couple of times to the exhibition - being local and members has its advantages, though I think we must have been otherwise occupied as we didn't do an after hours one.
There were some lovely pieces though I think I enjoyed Realism and the. Cartier exhibitions more.

 

[Lord_Lenny]

We popped across a couple of times to the exhibition - being local and members has its advantages, though I think we must have been otherwise occupied as we didn't do an after hours one.
There were some lovely pieces though I think I enjoyed Realism and the. Cartier exhibitions more.

I definitely enjoyed it, I prefer some of the artists to others but overall I liked. Tbh Impressionism is more my thing, so we're heading down again later this year for that exhibition

 

[rainbowgirl]

We're back home now so I'm hoping to post more photos soon. We had no internet access for a few days so I wasn't able to respond. Thanks for your feedback so far.

 

[rainbowgirl]

We had a power failure at home while we were away and I've only just gotten access back to my computer and main email address. Sorry for the delay in posting more of the trip report.

 

[rainbowgirl]

We set off for the drive to Canberra on Easter Monday. Most of the traffic was coming towards Melbourne so we had a good run on the Hume Highway ( and freeway for most of the drive). Mr Rainbow did the first driving shift and we did our first driver change in Euroa.

Above is the playground where Miss 10 and Miss 12 played while we had a rest.

 

[rainbowgirl]

The Hume Highway has undergone some massive changes since I was last involved in an interstate trip over 20 years ago. It's now highway or freeway all of the way to Sydney and bypasses all major and minor towns. If we'd wanted to we could have stayed on the highway the entire way and just stopped at service centres for food, drink and petrol. We hadn't planned out the exact route and stops before hand so sometimes we went off the main road and visited a few places along the way.

I was happy the road conditions had improved over the years but I missed going through some of the towns. I'm glad we had a chance to see Euroa. While I was driving we passed murals based on the bushrangers who had been active in the area. I also thought of the TV show, "Selling Houses Australia" who had filmed an episode in the town in the last year. During this trip report I'm probably going to mention lots of TV shows and my hobby of location spotting.

 

[rainbowgirl]

We had lunch at Hungry Jack's in Albury. This is such a large and amazing town. The freeway which goes past it is huge and has multiple exits for different sections of Wodonga and Albury. We were hoping to find a small cafe somewhere but we were running late and decided to take the fast food option.

I knew we were going to McDonalds later in the holiday so I chose Hungry Jacks for something different.