In the nineteenth century, Australia's colonial gentry made it fashionable to spend summer in the hills. Mountain resorts or hill stations - in such locations as Mount Macedon in Victoria, the Blue Mountains and Southern Highlands in New South Wales, the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and Toowoomba in Queensland - quickly attracted patrons eager to luxuriate in the cooler climate, seek out the curative mountain air, enjoy the exotic gardens or take part in the refined society which gathered there. In Summer in the Hills, Andrea Inglis examines these antipodean hill- stations in detail, discussing their Imperial and Anglo- Indian antecedents and also considering the sometimes- surprising variations, which manifested in the local exemplars. Drawing on a wealth of lively primary sources, she opens a window on to the distinctive society that developed in the hills. As well, she explores variously the role played by aesthetic values, the importance of medical opinion in defining the hill station as a health resort and the impact of the hill-station experience on colonial attitudes to the bush. Finally, her study suggests that the hill station - no less than the beach or the post-World War II ski resort - made a clear contribution to a fledgling sense of Australian national identity.
