Australian teenager Heidi is left with little choice but to leave home after she's caught red-handed with her mother's boyfriend. With few options, Heidi ends up in Jindabyne, a tourist community. Upon meeting Joe at a bar, she pursues a relationship with him and tries to find something resembling a normal home life. Heidi makes small strides by getting a job and finding a place to stay, but her relationship with Joe must overcome more than its share of hurdles.
The trials and tribulations of the Goddard family after the entry of Australia into the Vietnam War.
As four teens navigate the flashpoint of adolescent relationships, their lives will be forever scarred by a tragedy that engulfs their city. Teenagers Billie and Laura, who live in Canberra’s suburban outskirts, are best friends and share everything – even, as it turns out, Laura’s boyfriend Danny, although Laura doesn’t know this. During the summer of Canberra’s bushfires, Billie’s mother welcomes the troubled Isaac into her care and his presence causes disarray in the girls’ friendship: Laura finds herself drawn to the gentle but intense newcomer while Billie’s unpredictable ways threaten self-destruction.
In late 1997, Anu Singh, an attractive law student in Canberra, made plans to kill her boyfriend Joe Cinque after throwing a series of macabre farewell dinner parties. The dinner guests, most of them university students, had heard various rumours about her plan, but nobody warned Joe. Joe's death and the subsequent trial drew the attention of the whole country, as the broader community struggled to come terms with how a life could fall through so many hands.
Fran, the assistant to university professor Paddy, is about to turn 30. She is having an affair with a married minister's aide, Stephen. She returns home to the country town she grew up in and has a fling with an old flame, Alan. She also begins sleeping with Paddy.
Canberra, the National Capital of Australia, is a city which has been planned; a place where modern living is enriched by a lovely setting. But the hustling young city of today is expanding and developing, and there is emerging the pattern of the proud city of tomorrow.