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I spent a few hours wandering about Canberra today and, in the lovely winter sunshine, it struck me that we (Australians) sometimes forget one of our defining characteristics… the space we live in…

Having lived in the UK for 5 years I don’t think I’ve ever found a satisfactory way of explaining this aspect of being Australian – for me anyway. Don’t get me wrong, this is just my view & experience, there are Australians who spend (literally) their whole life living in one of the suburban sprawls (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide…) and see less of Australia than most passing overseas tourists.

But those places are not the places I have found myself yearning for when I’m away… It’s the open spaces that, selfishly, I don’t have to share with anyone – at that moment in time when I’m there – that I missed. A moments true silence in the bush is indescribable.

One of Canberra’s strengths (and societally, admittedly, possibly one of its weaknesses) is it so easy to find a space to be alone. It’s a small city of a few over 330,000 people with so much space it nearly defies explanation… you try explaining to a Brit that you live in a city but within 30 minutes drive south you can be in dangerous alpine wilderness where people have gone camping and died…

So here’s an attempt, the ACT is the smallest state/territory land area (2200km²) in Australia and is about the size of Nottinghamshire, however, over 40% of that 2200km² (about 1000km²) is Namagadgi National Park, an uninhabited wilderness.

See what I mean, all the numbers in the world won’t do it… so you’ll just have to take my word for it, and that I enjoy it… :P

Maybe a picture is worth a thousand words….