As the ABC celebrates its 90th year, Heather Ewart takes a look at the evolution of the road trip, and revisits some of the very best she’s taken on Back Roads.
The great Australian road trip is a rite of passage for many, and a passion that can start early in life. Whether it’s skirting the edge of the ocean, driving through vast deserts, heading to the hills or just on the way to grandmas. If there’s a destination worth getting to then there’s a road trip to get there.
In this special episode of Back Roads, Heather Ewart takes a look at some of the very best, and dips into the ABC archives to discover the origins of our love affair with the road.
From its beginnings with mass car ownership of the 1950s, to the birth of four-wheel drives, the surfing road trips of the 1960s, the rise of the caravan and the very first wave of grey nomads, Heather looks at how the road trip became part of our national identity.
And to show how far we’ve come Heather chooses four of her favourite drives. Starting on the Oodnadatta Track in South Australia she drives with local Aboriginal stockman Bobby Hunter as they take in the stunning Lake Eyre.
Swapping the desert for snow country, Heather ventures up to Dinner Plain in Victoria to see a dog sled event, before driving over the border into the NSW snowfields and Mount Kosciuszko.
Taking a road she’d never heard of, Heather takes a trip along the Savannah Way, from Innisfail to Normanton with a couple of travelling hairdressers.
And no list would be complete without a journey across the mighty Nullarbor Plain, slowing down to turn off the highway to meet the quirky volunteers of the Eyre Bird Observatory.
Join Heather Ewart as she sets out to discover what ingredients are needed to make a road trip – truly epic!
