Monumental Canberra

Do you know the capital of Australia? 

I didn't until I got here. 

It's Canberra (pronounced Canbra) which is located in the Australian Capital Territory.

And most Australians have never been there, nor do they seem to have any desire to go there. It's a tiny city of 300,000, home to government, museums, monuments, and has no coastline (hence no beaches). But the monumnets and museums more than try to compensate for the lack of beaches.

Anzac Parade is a large street through the center of the axis of Canberra, but more on that later. The street is lined with memorials and monuments with room designated for more.

 There are memorials to wars and conflicts...

The Vietnam War

 

 The Korean War

(The Australian War Memorial gets its own blog it's so big)

The Rats of Tobruk Memorial, whatever that is...

And the monuments to all the service branches...

 The aqua flag is for the air force, the white flag is for the navy, and the army has the Australia National flag.

The Australian Army.

The Royal Australian Navy

The Royal Australian Air Force

 And even the Australian Service Nurses.

And then there are memorials for other countries...

New Zealand.

Netherlands.

And the most dissapointing memorial of all. The American Australia memorial. A tall spike in the middle of office buildings. If I hadn't been looking for it, I never would have found it. And that would probably have been a good thing. There were poles for flags, a wreath and a flame, but none were in action. I hope it wasn't representative of what Australians think of America.

In a city like Canberra, you can't help but be thankful for all the men and women who have served their country for peace, freedom, and the protection of human rights, whatever country it may be.