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Well...I suppose. I have no real travel experience to compare it too. For me, it just looks dry, brown and crunchy! Summer is not my favourite time here. It's lovely and green in the winter/spring...I much prefer it then.

I've not been, but I'm thinking for example of the sun on Ayer's Rock/Uluru or on the Olgas, crossing the watershed in the Great Dividing Range, the Great Barrier Reef...truly unique.....

Something about the intensity, isolation and purity of the light....

I suppose they are. I've often crossed the Blue Mountain range and wondered at the people striving to cross them on foot, way back when. But to be perfectly honest, I haven't really traveled much outside of NSW. Not only is NSW BIG anyway, when your family is full of autistic people, traveling becomes a bit of a nightmare! I'm saving up all my traveling for the New Earth...it'll be better then anyway

I've seen picture of the NSW mountains and some of them are so rugged that living around there must seem very remote.

I think some of the mountains run into the ACT near Lake Burley Griffin or whatever it's called...right?

Well, the whole Range itself covers quite a chunk of land, and people have managed to plonk houses here and there over it...even nestle small towns in sections of it. But certainly, some sections of it are so steep that the roads jack-knife back and forward up and then down over them.

There are definitely mountains around Canberra, but none really IN it. Probably the only one is "Black Mountain", and it's more of a really big hill! I'm fairly sure the land around the lake is fairly flat. But the mountains teasing the view around the city itself is fairly picturesque.

@Naomi25 I seem to remember the name Queyanbeayan or something, right along the boundary of the ACT; must be some good mountain views around there also...

Possibly. Yes, Queanbeyan is right next to Canberra, on the NSW side. I really haven't been there, to be honest, so I can't say what it looks like. Probably lovely...Canberra is situated in a lovely spot.

@Naomi25 Yes, as a capital city Canberra in a spectacular setting, from pictures I have seen. What did surprise me to learn was that, despite being a capital city it has very few direct international flights connecting it.

A.N.U at Canberra has a great library; I would have liked to have visited it, but it probably won't happen now.

My husband attended ANU before I met him. I believe he was fairly impressed with the facilities. And you just never know where life will take you!

@Naomi25 Did, he indeed? ANU notably has strengths in study resources about minority languages; there is a wealth of very useful information for the researcher, that has been painstakingly put together at ANU over many years.

Does it? That's interesting, although perhaps not surprising, being in the Capital city.

@Naomi25 In some ways I guess that Canberra has a more peaceful pace of life than, say, Sydney and Melbourne...and of course it's well inland...

Oh goodness yes. It's much more spread out, less 'crammed', than the bigger cities...they built out, rather than up. And they've kept a lot of bush land in it. There are great big patches of national forest dotted throughout the City, so sometimes you wonder if you're still IN Canberra.

@Naomi25 It's the sort of place I would be especially like to visit if ever I went to Australia. I think that direct flights to Singapore and Auckland have recently started to Canberra.

It's probably unfair, but I think some Australians in the past regarded Canberra as somewhat of a backwater.

Well...anyone who lives in Sydney thinks anything outside of Sydney is a backwater pit. It's a form of dementia that I haven't figured out...especially considering the city itself. I'm not sure who'd want to live there, personally, especially the clear dementia it seems to infect people with.