Just a dirt track

It may just look like a muddy track around the fringes of the suburbs, but this particular dirt track is a little more significant than most. This is part of the Bicentennial National Trail. The trail is actually 5330 km long, from far north Queensland down to Victoria, and it even has its own website! The trail began with an idea of a horse trail linking the stock routes along the Great Dividing Range, and developed into a $300 000 Bicentennial project, opened in 1988.

The trail is used by all sorts of people - for short walks or long treks on foot or horse, by cyclists and by people accessing bush camping areas, fishing spots and more. There are easy stretches like this one between the houses on the edge of Spence, Fraser and Dunlop, and rugged parts through national parks. What you can't take on the trail is your dog (parts of the trail go through farmland where there may be baits for wild dogs and foxes) or any sort of motorised vehicle - so leave your 4WD and trailbike at home.

The website has lots of information about the trail, its history, and how you can help maintain it, as well as maps and details of the guidebooks available if you wanted to follow all or part of the trail.

On the edge

You're never more than about 20 minutes' drive from the edge of the city when you're in Canberra.

This is the view over the roofs of Dunlop, a suburb in the West Belconnen area, towards the ACT border and into rural NSW. The suburb is less than 20 years old, and some estates in the suburb are much newer than that.

The blue hills that you can just glimpse near the roof on the left are part of the Brindabella Range - in the middle of winter they're sometimes dusted in snow, and a freezing wind can howl across the bare hills into this area. At the moment, though, the weather is pretty close to perfect. Warm and sunny during the day, cool at night, and with a brisk hint of autumn in the mornings. Although this photo was taken last September, it's pretty similar to what we're experiencing right now.