“Home is where the heart is, and the real measure of Canberra – like everywhere, I guess – may be found in its people and the things they value most,” says “The Gadfly” columnist ROBERT MACKLIN.

THERE are times – like now – when life is just so wonderful, so special, that you just have to share it with our little part of the world. 

That part of which I speak is, of course, Australia and more specifically this southern corner of NSW that includes the national gem we call Canberra.

You can keep your mighty metropoles, Canberra is the “Four Seasons” of human settlement, not least because it actually possesses the quartet in an annual array. And despite the belching pollutants from the crowded, industrial calamities, we can breathe the clean Canberra air all year round. 

If the winter winds fain chill the blood, or the summer westerlies swell the mercury, the Mediterranean zephyrs of Tuross or the mountain airs of the Snowy uplands are each no more than a morning’s easy drive away. But if work demands your presence in the capital, then Canberra in January or July is sheer delight. 

The former, nicely named for Janus, the two-faced Roman god who could see both back and forth, is basically empty of Canberrans who are splashing in the South Pacific. 

So us stay-behinders are transported back to the 1970s when the daily rush hours were all of 10 minutes morning and arvo. And these days the evaporative cooler fills the home unit with delicious breezes. While July, courtesy of the great Caesar, is snuggling-down time with crackling fires and electric blankets and footy on the telly. 

But it’s also the time when Tuross beckons and that little bolthole repays its investment with savings on gas bills and reunions with the friends of that village community. 

It becomes ever more interesting as new retirees and workers from home add sparkle and heft to the communal conversation. We even enjoy the journey there, through the burgeoning Bungendore and the irresistible stop at the Braidwood pie shop or the Nelligen café for its incomparable flathead tails and crisp, golden chips.

If at any time we chose the mountains or the hinterland, a smorgasbord of delight awaits in the charm of Adelong and Tumut, the history and friendliness of Gundagai and the strange, ghostly surrounds of Batlow, the apple capital of NSW with its vast white sheeting coddling the ripening orbs. To the west is the gold rush and bushranger country of Lambing Flat, Eugowra and crooked, old Canowindra.

But home is where the heart is, and the real measure of Canberra – like everywhere, I guess – may be found in its people and the things they value most. 

Oh yes, there are the great national treasures of the Museum, the Gallery, the ANU and the Arboretum. And for the visitors, the Parliament and War Memorial. 

But for us denizens it’s the intellectual companionship that’s the real joy; and it was delightfully revealed most recently in a local poll that found the following: 

• Will you get a flu shot this year? 92 per cent said “Yes”. 

• Did you go to Church this Easter? 80 per cent, “No”.

• Do you care that Anthony Albanese stumbled over the unemployment rate? 77 per cent “No”. 

Indeed, the very fact that we’re free to vote in a war-torn world is cause for wonder and delight. That really warms the cockles.

robert@robertmacklin.com