The Hume's 'Great Divide'

'It's so boring!' That's what you hear people say about the Hume, the national highway between Sydney and Melbourne.  Every town along the route is bypassed. I can drive from my home at South Melbourne, pass through one traffic light onto Kingsway, and reach the other side of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel before I hit the second traffic light of my journey to my daughter's house at Manly.

Driving door-to-door from South Melbourne to Manly, in the process crossing over the heart of Australia's two largest cities, can easily be achieved in under ten hours. That time includes several coffee stops. It's a stunning improvement on the bad old days. Even bored travellers will concede about the Hume that 'It's a great road trip.'

The Hume has a different name in each state (Hume Freeway in Victoria, Hume Highway in NSW), and nowhere is the full distance from one city's GPO to the other city's GPO signposted. As roadside signs prove, the distance depends on how far you've already driven from the central city before you see the first indication of the journey you've yet to make.

More and more people now take to the road in preference to the expense and hassle of flying ... but the Hume's reputation as a scenic drive, experienced at 110kph 'cruise control' along an easy road for so many hours, continues to generate that constant refrain 'It's so boring'.

I don't agree. There's always something new to see and think about along the way. For example, on my numerous trips along the Hume I've exercised my brain trying to work out where the Highway twice crosses the 'Great Divide', as distinct from the Great Dividing Range. Both terms refer to the drainage system for our rivers, some of which flow to the Pacific Ocean and Bass Strait and some of which flow inland. The Range itself extends for 3,500 kilometres, from far north Queensland through New South Wales to Western Victoria, and it has a huge influence on Australia's climate.

The physical presence of the Great Dividing Range as hills and mountains is pretty obvious. The actual line marking the 'Great Divide' is not at all obvious.  

At the Sydney end it's taken me a while to figure out where the road crosses the 'Great Divide'. After leaving Sydney and reaching Goulburn, you leave the hilly forested country behind and gaze over our 'sunlit plains extended'. Yet the Wollondilly River at Goulburn is still flowing towards the Pacific Ocean, as a tributary of the Nepean-Hawkesbury River.

Well beyond the Canberra turnoff, the next town heading southwards, Gunning, obtains its water supply from the Lachlan River, which the highway doesn't cross. The Lachlan River, which flows westwards as part of the Murray-Darling catchment area, eventually reaches the sea near Adelaide on the Great Australian Bight in South Australia. Maps indicate that the river begins its journey on the high ground where the Gunning Wind Farm is located. Now I understand that ridge line's topographical significance and why those wind turbines are located there. The turbines make an excellent landmark signifying the 'Great Divide' for Hume Highway travellers. It's quite astonishing to realise that this crossing point, marked on the map above, is so far inland, nearly one-third of the way to Melbourne.

As the end of my long day in the car is approaching, after I've crossed the Goulburn River at Seymour, gradually gained altitude and passed the turn-off signs for Kilmore, I reach the unmarked but geographically significant Kilmore Gap just before the Wallan South roadhouse. In summer time, as now, I am still driving in daylight.

The spot, quite close to Melbourne, is marked unobtrusively by the simple road sign shown in the photo, beside the southbound lanes of the Hume ... there's a corresponding sign as you head northwards, just past the Wallan North roadhouse. The height above sea level is unimpressive - I think it says 'Great Dividing Range, Road Level 347 m'. Drivers flashing by at 110kph, if they even notice it, might sneer at this low number and wonder why anyone would bother erecting the sign. Yet it has great significance, marking the point where the rivers stop flowing inland. Past this sign, heading southwards from the Kilmore Gap, the channels carrying our precious and scarce water resource start to flow towards Port Phillip Bay and out into Bass Strait.

In other parts of Australia, important community information of this nature is often highlighted. A sign from the Snowy area, posted by someone named Luke on doherty.net.au, is an example.

I'd love to see the tourism authorities in NSW​ and the Victoria Tourism Industry Council arrange for an informative sign at both Great Divide points along the Hume.  A short message would do - 'Great Divide, Kilmore Gap', 'Elevation xxx m', plus the two arrows with appropriate wording.  The message might say 'Rivers Flow Inland' and 'Rivers Flow to Coast' OR 'Murray Darling Basin' and 'Coastal Rivers' or something similar. Signs like these would introduce a discussion topic to help keep everyone awake on the Hume and would make the long trip more interesting​, at the same time improving everyone's understanding of this vast continent. 

Hume Highway Addiction

Hume Freeway sign, Melbourne

On the road again - in a few minutes. In another life I must have been a long-distance truckie. Answering the call of family, I regularly drive up and down the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney. Ten times last year. Today's journey will be the fifth time so far this year.

Here's that daunting sign as I leave Melbourne's Metropolitan Ring Road and join the Hume, having already driven about 30km from South Melbourne.

I've flown to Sydney a few times in recent months, due to time pressures (e.g. getting to a funeral in time), but flying is such a hassle! Taxi to Skybus, bus to the airport, hanging around the airport, flying, wait-wait-waiting for bags, walking miles to catch the train at Sydney airport, mucking around in ticket queues topping up my Opal, train to Circular Quay, getting to Manly on the ferry, trailing my bag up the hill to my daughter's. From start to finish it generally takes me about 6 hours. By contrast, driving door-to-door can be achieved in 9 1/4 hours (at best) but .... I can listen to music all the way, petrol costs for my small car plus toll charges are vastly cheaper than the air fare and I have my car to use in Sydney.

Yes, all this fits in my small car

And this here's another reason why I often drive rather than fly - I need to transport lots of miscellaneous 'stuff' up and down. This is what came back with me last time! Some of it mine, some for other people.

Most people think the Hume is really boring but it's a great road and I never fail to find something of interest. The beautiful cloud formations and colours in our big skies at various times of day are amazing, especially at twilight and dusk. I don't have any sunset pics of my own (solo drivers can't take shots out the window at 110kph) but here's someone else who lives close to the Hume and loves these skies.

I'd forgotten how dry is the landscape between the two cities until I drove from Melbourne to Port Macquarie and return recently, a distance of 2,500 km. On the Hume you cross three 'major' rivers, the Murray at Albury/Wodonga, the Murrumbidgee at Gundagai and the serpentine course of the Nepean several times near Sydney. All  have big, culturally-significant names ... but small flows, except in rare flood-times. Apart from the signs on the bridges, you scarcely register the presence of these rivers as you hurtle across them at 110kph.

(P.S. After a subsequent trip to Sydney, during a very wet winter, a few extra rivers in Victoria reminded me of their existence - the Goulburn, Broken & Ovens, all of which were overflowing.)

Hastings River at Port Macquarie

North of Sydney it's a different story. The Hawkesbury River and sandstone country give way to the Hunter River and all the majestic rivers and lush valleys north of Newcastle. You barely emerge from one river catchment before the next vista astonishes you. Even the minor rivers and creeks, with names unfamiliar to me, were bountiful. At Port Macquarie, the Hastings River becomes a broad estuary as it reaches the sea. All that water. At the time, it was a beautiful sight for parched eyes.

Water beside Hume Highway, June 2016

Last time I drove to Sydney it was late in June. For a change we've had a wet winter, gumboot weather. The water lying in paddocks alongside the Hume was a view so rare that I even stopped to take a photo. Ten weeks later the farmers are cursing this year's non-stop wet winter.

'Broad Leaf Wattle & Honey Flower', Margaret Flockton

I wonder what I'll see on my journey today. Lots of wattles in bloom, I expect. It's a specutacular sight all along the Hume at this time of year., worthy of tourist promotion. The ocasional gaps in the display need attention by local councils or the Main Roads Dept.

One of the reasons for my trip this time is to give a talk on Thursday at the Stanton Library in Sydney about my forthcoming book on the botanical artist Margaret Flockton. For details of that book, click here. Let me know if you'd like to join the waiting list for the book, due out in November 2016.

Close Encounters of the Third Police Kind

Picture the scene. A shining, magnificent winter’s day in Victoria. For once, the Hume Highway to Sydney almost enticing as it stretched out before me. The view of Mount Buffalo from the Glenrowan Hill and every other landscape feature towards the distant horizon crisply defined. The purest of sky-blue skies marred only by little puffs-of-shaving-cream clouds hovering above a couple of hill tops.

Fast forward a couple of hours. The sentiments of It’s a Beautiful World were still playing on repeat in my head as I day-dreamed my way down a long hill towards a place I soon discovered is called Little Billabong, north of Holbrook in New South Wales. A red police car was parked in the scrub between the north and southbound lanes, his LIDAR camera pointing my way, and my beautiful day crash-landed.

Oops. My car is a small manual car with no cruise control and picks up speed on a long downhill run, but for once I wasn’t watching my speedo. The long arm of the law was extended out of the window of the police car, pointing directly at me and signalling me to pull over. I have to confess he was playing it straight by not hiding in the bushes, the police tactic in common use on the Victorian section of the Hume Highway. But Policeman No 1 was definitely positioned to catch speeding cars at the bottom of a slope extending upwards for a kilometre or more.

Flashing red and blue lights drew up behind me. My only rueful remark as I handed over my licence was 'I was day-dreaming.'

The very hunky and very polite police officer seemed a bit surprised to discover that, despite my own red car, I was not a young hoon out for a spin on the open road. But I was booked, of course. As I was handed the ticket with the fine of $243, I said ‘You’ve got to be joking’.

He tried to help. ‘Have you had a clean driving record in NSW for the last ten years?’

‘I’ve had a clean driving record since 1966.’

‘Ok, you can exercise Option 2 on the ticket. Write a letter. The authorities might let you off with a caution.’ He pointed to the relevant wording on the back of the ticket. As he turned to walk away his parting advice was ‘Ease off on the speed, there are a lot of police on this road.’

My glum reply was ‘I know, I’m on this road all the time.’

A bit further north I stopped for petrol at South Gundagai. Tucked in, not visible from the highway, was a police random breath test unit and I was waved down for testing for the first time in twenty six years of regular driving on the Hume.

Policeman No 2 was friendly and a little bit of social chit-chat seemed in order. ‘I’ve just been breathalysed.’ An afterthought also seemed relevant. ‘And booked.’

‘Yeah? Where?’

I pointed to the south. ‘About half an hour or so down the road.’

‘Really? What colour was the car?’

‘Red.’

‘Not one of ours, then. What did he do you for?’

‘A hundred and twenty five.’

‘One twenty five on the Hume?’ The official speed limit is one hundred and ten, but the Hume is one of the best roads in Australia, driving conditions were perfect and his disbelief was palpable. ‘Geez. Write a letter.’

The Alcotest was administered and we parted the best of friends.

That was Sunday afternoon. On Friday morning I left Sydney to drive back to Melbourne and needed more petrol at South Gundagai. Incredibly, there was the random breath test patrol again, this time staffed by two policemen. Seeing the funny side of all this unexpected attention from the police, I lowered the driver's window and grinned at Policeman No 3. ‘I was breathalysed here last Sunday.’

He looked at me. ‘Were you? It was probably me then, but I don’t remember.’

‘No, it was your mate.’ I pointed to Policeman No 2, attending the car in front of me.

Policeman No 3 called out to him. ‘This lady says she was here last Sunday.’

Policeman No 2 looked in my direction and recognised my car. ‘That’s the lady who was done by that cockroach down south for one twenty five.’

Policeman No 3 had obviously heard all about it. He turned back to me, full of sympathy. ‘Did you get your letter away?’

‘No, but I’ll write it as soon as I get back to Melbourne tonight.’

‘You do that. Don’t forget now.’ He held the Alcotest gadget near my mouth, I dutifully counted aloud and he waved me on.

The letter’s now in the mail. I’m hoping that an official caution will arise from this cautionary tale.

Life in the Fast Lane

Driving a Hyundai Getz, a little car with even littler wheels, is not usually synonymous with an image of life in the fast lane. But somehow, while feeling every bump in the road, I still manage to outdrive most vehicles on the Hume Highway. Being red makes any car go faster, of course.

Lest you get the wrong idea, so far I've had a long driving record (50 years) with only one police demerit action - back in the 90s, in Melbourne, caught by a camera for exceeding the speed limit by 3km per hour.

Certainly, as I'm buffeted by sidewinds in my Getz, I often hanker for my old silver Mitsubishi Lancer, that well-known rally winner with its long wheel base, much heavier body, comfortable driving position and easy ride, but it recently reached its use-by date, after 311,000 km of trouble-free driving. When an oil leak from the head gasket developed in Sydney, I deemed the expense of fixing it to be unjustified. Reckoning that no backyard tinkerer in Sydney would buy an interstate-registered car, I watched it disappear from sight on the back of a wrecker's tow truck. At least its replacement (my mother's zippy little car) is easy on the petrol.

Cars have always been part of my life. As a five year old I was carted off by my Dad and uncles to the dust-bowl of the Bathurst car races in the early 50s. Since becoming a driver myself, my personal parade of vehicles reads like a 'who's who' of the car history of Australia, save for the dreaded Toyota Corolla - I've never even driven one.

I can't say that I've had a Rolls-Royce existence as a driver, except perhaps for the large Mercedes sedan I once drove, back in the 90s. Luxury be damned - it was like riding in a mobile arm chair, being very heavy and slow to wind up to cruising speed. Not much fun. Of course, that other luxury car of 'the good old days' was at the other extreme - a Porsche. What fantastic acceleration! The 90s also saw frequent trips from Melbourne to a farm at Yea in that most archetypal Aussie car, the Holden Commodore, along that well-known death road, the Melba Highway. Safety was also an issue as we traversed hilly farm paddocks in a Mazda ute and an old Land Rover.

The late 80s saw trips every weekend from Melbourne to a holiday cottage at Mount Buller in a Ford Fairlane V8. Earlier in the 80s there were numerous weekend trips from Sydney to Canberra in its stablemate, a Ford Laser - sometimes making the return trip in a day, at a time well before the roads reached today's high standard.

In the 70s I drove a Fiat 124 coupe for five years - good for zipping around Port Moresby, where I lived, but there was nowhere much to drive on weekends except to the Moresby end of the Kokoda track and the car proved impractical for family use when we returned to Sydney.

Way back in the 60s there was the old Mayflower, my boyfriend's mother's car on which I learned to drive. Our young male friends had MGBs and Minis but we opted for a trusty V-Dub, which took me from Sydney to Cairns and back on my (first) honeymoon and which, for the next two years, ran up and down a very dangerous road between Dubbo and Sydney every month. That car retains a special place in my heart. It was red too.

Looking back there's been so much driving, so much of it long-distance, that I can't quite believe it. There have been no smashes, touch wood, and only one slight bingle that was my fault, during my first year of driving when I was seventeen. I merged lanes incorrectly and side-swiped a Sydney bus which I hadn't noticed! Hmmm! It was a useful lesson - from then onwards, the notion of defensive driving struck a permanent chord.

Of course, our vast distances mean that the hardest part of highway driving in Australia is concentrating. My current car has a manual drive and no cruise control, so the necessity of driving it every inch of the way certainly helps me to focus. More importantly, I've long since learned the lesson of dressing warmly in the car, in order to keep cold air blowing in my face, with the fresh air intake vent wide open. I'm convinced that many single vehicle accidents on country roads are caused by warm stale air recirculating inside the car and creating a drowsy driver.

For example, some years back, on a busy stretch of highway near Melbourne, the solo driver in the 'slow lane' beside me went to sleep at the wheel and drifted across into my lane. Trying to avoid a collision, I kept on moving to my right and he kept on coming at me, until the right hand verge was inches away. In both lanes we had cars in front and cars behind, all doing 100kph, and I ended up driving a short distance with his car bumping against mine. I managed to keep both of us on the bitumen tarmac until he shook himself awake and we could pull over. He was lucky (as was his wife and young family at home) that my trusty Lancer stopped him from running off the road at 100kph and hitting the trees.

Keeping calm in the face of provocation is another hazard of the open road. I still can't understand why drivers with the whole Hume Highway stretching before them will pass a car and then chop straight back in, barely a car length in front at 110kph, instead of staying out in the fast lane until well clear of an overtaken vehicle. Back in the 60s we were always taught to wait until that slower car is visible in your own rear-vision mirror before you change lanes, but too many people are using those distance-distorting side-vision mirrors, mirrors which are clearly an invitation to road rage.

I've driven a fair bit in the UK too, where driver attitudes in general are streets ahead of ours. For example, when incoming traffic is merging into a motorway, it is almost an automatic reflex for UK drivers already on the motorway to foresee the potential for collision and move across one lane, thereby clearing the left lane entry point. That instinctive form of defensive driving is much rarer here. I often wish that I was a member of a road safety committee, as our current media campaigns do very little to improve defensive driving attitudes and skills.

(P.S. I know this 'post' does not have much relevance to the life of a writer, but my present obligations to the welfare of my mother involve frequent trips up and down the Hume Highway between Melbourne and Sydney. It diverts me to think these thoughts as I drive along.)

Here I Go Again

That Hollies song says it all. For the umpteenth time in less than a year I've been back on the Hume Highway.

On each trip I try to focus on some distinguishing feature of the drive. I ask myself - what is making this long day different? On 11 April, heading north, I have to admit that the drive was pretty boring. Only two things made it memorable - the smoke haze, virtually obliterating any sharp images of the landscape for most of the journey, and the lack of autumn leaves.

The burning-off programmes in our forests, supposedly to protect the community against the worst impact of bushfires, rarely rates a mention as a contributor to our global warming problem. Amazing! When I lived in the Yarra Valley there were often days when wet washing could not be hung outside to dry, because ash sediment and the smell of smoke would cling to the fabric. And as for the consequences for asthmatics - terrible! To me, the pollution seemed a high price to pay for the dubious benefits of the deliberate burning strategy.

On the return journey, on 21 April, autumn was still missing-in-action. There was one spectacular display of red, yellow and orange foliage at the junction of the Hume and Federal Highways near Goulburn, but otherwise little to indicate along the full length of the Hume that we are more than halfway through autumn. Yet this was a genuine autumn day - the air was so calm and still that the blades of the wind turbines south of Goulburn were motionless. Nature is proving the point that the average minimum daily temperature is rising.

On the road itself, a little colour and movement was injected by a vintage car rally. Of all the old-timers chugging along in the slow lane, my favourite was the pink Cadillac Coupe de Ville Convertible. Actually, it was parked - at where else? - McDonalds, at Glenrowan.

The main excitement of the journey was a truck fire on the Hume near Wallan. The truck was carrying carpet rolls and the fire was difficult to extinguish, meaning that the road was closed for a lengthy period, creating a huge Sunday evening traffic jam. It made me think that overhead traffic management signs positioned a short distance prior to exit points would be a great addition to that very busy road, warning drivers about problems ahead. Decisions to take an alternative route might thus be made in time. For example, an optional route to Melbourne is via Seymour and down the Whittlesea Rd or Melba Highway. I would have appreciated such information, as I'd planned to buy more petrol on the outskirts of Melbourne and as I inched forward in stop-start traffic over many long kilometres I kept an anxious eye on my petrol gauge. The truck, which looked as if it had once been a B-double, was a burnt out shell when we long-suffering motorists eventually crawled past several hours later.

On the Road Again

Another quick trip up and down the Hume Highway (Friday, to Sydney and Wednesday, back to Melbourne) had me wondering how to distract myself from a monotonous drive.

At this early-autumn time of year the passing landscape is rather tired and bland, in need of urgent work by Picasa or Photoshop to correct the over-exposure of lighting and under-exposure of colour tones. Heading south yesterday, the concrete road ahead blended upwards into a colourless white/grey washed-out sky and outwards into straw-coloured paddocks and faded olive-green patches of foliage, while the distant hills were shrouded in either mist or smoke haze, I could not tell which.

Almost the only visual distraction from the horizontal spread was right beside the road - the narrow trunks of gum trees, some of them like a forest of vertical pencils, others standing like black-uniformed sentries at attention. In his wonderful book The Leopard, Tomasi di Lampedusa describes eucalypyts as the 'scruffiest of Mother Nature's children'. His Italian perspective struck a chord yesterday as I reached the end of that boring traverse across the plains south of Albury, boredom broken only by the hill at Glenrowan. As Violet Town drew nearer those so-called scruffy children suddenly matured into adulthood, becoming bulkier and far more shapely. And very different, again, from the eucalypts growing densely on the sandstone hills bordering the Sydney basin. I felt ashamed of my inability to give a name to most of these trees. How I wished I had Murray Bail's encyclopedic knowledge of our native flora, described in his Australian fairy story Eucalyptus.

The new micro-climate for the trees got me thinking again, about how the trip south west along the Hume Highway from Sydney to Melbourne involves two crossings of the Great Dividing Range in one day. The range runs southwards and parallel to the eastern seaboard of the continent and then sweeps around in a giant curve to fizzle out to the north-west of Melbourne. We might be attuned to this geographic feature as a mountain range, albeit eroded, but travellers to Australia from other shores would scarcely bestow the term 'hills' upon our mighty Great Divide.

Having descended the range for the second time, the road crosses the grasslands bordering metropolitan Melbourne, yesterday's burnt roadside verges providing ample evidence of recent wild fires. After a long day in the car it's always good to see on the far horizon the high-rise buildings of the central city, my destination, reminding me that journey's end is nigh. I know that I'll just have to stay awake, keep concentrating, for another 45 minutes and I'll be safely home again.

Magic Carpet Ride

It's strange how the thoughts entering your head as you drive between Sydney and Melbourne can take you on a magic carpet ride. On my journey home yesterday after spending another week in Sydney I thought about man's search for meaning. For me it revolves around people - what do other people mean to me and, more importantly, what do I mean to other people?

As I cruised along, I recalled a time many moons ago when a special man in my life told me that he'd broken every speed limit on a long car trip back from the country in order to spend more time with me at the end of his journey. At the time it gave me a wonderful feeling that I meant something very important to him. Today, no-one rushes home to me and I'm not rushing to anyone special either. C'est la vie.

Now it's my four grandchildren (two sets of twins born 14 months apart) who make me feel that I mean something significant to someone. They make me feel that life's worth living.

The four children live in Hong Kong, so my visits to see them become an 'occasion' in their lives.

On my last trip I arrived at midnight, on a surprise visit. My eldest grandson, a little blondie aged six, had just been sleep-walked to the toilet when he registered that I was standing beside my suitcase in the adjoining bedroom. He lurched groggily across the room and launched himself up into my embrace, wrapping his legs round my waist and squeezing his arms round my neck and shoulders, delivering the best and longest hugs ever, and mumbling 'Dan, Dan' into my ear with joy. It was worth going all that way for such a greeting. (The children started calling me 'Dan' when Gran was still too hard to pronounce and the name has stuck, because I like it.)

On another visit, one of his two younger brothers broke away from the reception committee 'behind the barricades' at the airport and ran at full tilt across the concourse and into the restricted area, straight at me like a heat-seeking missile. There's a lot of love in evidence at airports, but that little display was hard to beat and made everyone happy, especially me. When we got home his sister, who was unwell, was bouncing up and down on her sick-bed, with her arms outstretched and a smile almost breaking her face in two when I walked through the door. I went straight to give her a cuddle and she scrambled into my lap, rocking backwards and forwards with excitement. No doubt about it, she was pleased to see me.

Their other brother, now aged five (arms raised in the photo), has proved a tough nut to crack, being much more stand-offish. He pulls the blanket over his head to avoid a good night kiss and on many of my visits to Hong Kong he's frequently told me to 'go and get on the next plane back to Melbourne'. But prior to my last visit he rang me in Melbourne with the question 'when are you coming to see us again, Dan?' He assured me most sincerely that he wouldn't tell me to go home again the minute I arrived. Demonstrative affection is still not his style, but having got me there, he sidled up to me, quietly took my hand, held it tightly and wouldn't let go. To me, that is currently the fullest possible measure of what I mean to him.

And so it goes. Other times. Other places. Other people. Before I know it, the long day in the car has passed and my magic carpet of memories has delivered me to my front door.

That Long and Winding Road

If Steptoe had fathered a daughter, her cart might have looked like mine as I left Sydney on my latest trip south, loaded to the max with items from my mother's house. Suitcases, cardboard cartons, plastic bags, pictures and assorted weird household objects left little room in the car for a driver.

I was reminded of some other memorable road trips with rather eccentric loads, such as the vase of fresh green zinnias, in water, which my young sister once held for me in her lap all the way from Dubbo to Sydney. When we moved from Sydney to Melbourne back in the 80s, our back seat passenger was our budgie, clinging to the perch in his cage but still capable of an occasional chirp.

A sinking feeling overwhelmed me as I reached the first 110kph speed sign heading out of town. Never before had the road ahead seemed so long and winding. I was tired after the months of effort required to convince my mother to move to a small independent-living unit in a retirement complex at North Sydney, not to mention moving her, setting up her new abode to her liking, selling her old house and making decisions with my sisters about the distribution of her surplus effects.

Exhaustion took its toll along the way, exacerbated by summer glare and temperatures. I stopped quite a few times for a wake-me-up coffee and a sneaky read in air-conditioned premises. This trip was a blur, a test of endurance. Never was I more glad to reach home.

Charming Chiltern

There's little time for writing these days - just driving. My latest trip towards Sydney along the Hume Highway, yesterday, was remarkable for crazy weather - bright sunshine accompanied me all the way, on the same day that heavy and very unseasonal snowfalls brought chaos to the Blue Mountains while heavy rain lashed the Wollongong area.

This time, after leaving Melbourne at tennish, I stopped in Chiltern (just south of Wodonga in Victoria) for a quick but old-fashioned lunch at the Chiltern Bakery, which I've now discovered opens every day at 7am. In all my trips northward I've never seen another car divert off the main road to see this historic township, although I can now attest that the streetscape of this quaint and charming little place is well worth seeing. It's much better and more interesting than Glenrowan, which I drove through on my last trip northwards. And it's a time-traveller's world away from your average soul-destroying stopping-point and fast-food joint on the Hume. Well done, Chiltern, for offering something practical but different to jaded wayfarers.

A driver on the Hume needs to keep awake by actively noticing features of the passing landscape. Yesterday it was Paterson's curse. Responsible landowners have eliminated the vast swathes of purple which once infested many private paddocks. The same can't be said for the roadside verges in southern New South Wales, well-endowed with patches of Paterson's curse. Someone in state or local government needs to act.

Shades of Grey

Rainy days on the Hume Highway are rare. Yesterday was such a day. It was almost possible to imagine oneself in England - with all that dampness in the atmosphere, lush green spring pasture, grey haze and mist, puddles by the road, water reflecting from the streams and ponds (a.k.a. creeks and dams).

But then there was the sky. Just like in England, the day was too dull to warrant sunglasses, but the rainy sky was just too huge, and too bright, to drive without the sun visors down, to block out the glare seeping through the clouds of our unmistakably Australian sky.

I'm back in Melbourne for a few days, to give a talk at the Ballarat Art Gallery - then Cat Stevens' mellifluous voice will be one of those filling my car with music, his song "On the road to find out" reminding me that "on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out" as I head back up the Hume to Sydney.

Gateway to the Antarctic

The monotony of the tropics does nothing for me and I love Melbourne's seasons, sometimes all four in one day. On AFL Grand Final Day yesterday the city demonstrated why some young people I know in Sydney refer to Melbourne as the 'gateway to the Antarctic'. It certainly felt like that on Saturday, with freezing winds and snow flurries reported at Melton, just outside Melbourne.

'Twas ever thus, according to my family history research. For example, the weather experienced by the First Fleet south of Australia on 20 December 1787, a summer's day, was so bitterly cold, with hail and snow, that Lieut Clark said he was obliged ‘to put on a flannel waistcoat and in the place of one pair of stockings two pairs, and obliged to keep my greatcoat on constantly all day’. Yet yesterday, when shopping at the South Melbourne market, I saw people in short-sleeved T-shirts and thongs on their feet. Were they Swans supporters visiting from Sydney, caught out by our variable weather?

A heavy police presence was obvious everywhere in South Melbourne, just in case the Swans devotees marked their club's former home territory with too much enthusiasm, but I was out and about before the match started and total decorum reigned. It was totally OK for next-door neighbours to support the opposing teams.

Today, I took to the Hume Highway again, heading north with hundreds of cars crammed with happy Swans fans, the die-hards even sporting red & white number plates. Queues for petrol, food and 'the ladies' at every stopping point made for a slower than normal trip, but the buzz in the air livened up yet another long drive.

I Love a Sunburned Country

Today I saw the gentle side of the country Dorothea Mackellar depicted so perfectly in her famous poem. Heading south from Sydney along the Hume Highway, my eyes feasted on the rich colour palette in a landscape unusually lush after two years of life-giving rains. Several times I almost jammed on the brakes to stop by the road and take a photo - but I hesitated a fraction too long and the momentum of 110kph took me too far forward to stop and run all the way back with my camera.

The wattles remained just as spectacular as on my last trip south, a month ago, blooming in every shade of yellow. Today large paddocks of canola added to the spectacle. Officially canola flowers are yellow, but to me they seemed to be a bright lime green in the shafts of sunlight. Eucalypts with tall, straight, grey and beige trunks and feathery olive green foliage provided excellent contrast. Blue hills in the misty background were topped by both white and black clouds (thunder storms in the distance) with a clear intense powder blue sky visible through the gaps in the clouds. It was a fabulous display.

Inspired by the excellence of this year's season, I diverted off the Hume at Seymour and travelled via the Goulburn Valley Highway to Yea (where I lived for some years, on Billalooa Farm) and down the Melba Highway to Yarra Glen in the Yarra Valley and onwards to Melbourne. That journey is one of the most beautiful drives in Victoria. The devastation of the Black Saturday bushfires of February 2009 was still very obvious around Glenburn, but in the forest preceding 'The Slide' the understorey had recovered and was a mass of a pale yellow ground-covering wattle.

As I passed 'Yering Station' at Yarra Glen, the sun had just set behind the range on my right. No artist could have done justice to nature's gift of that moment - a rectangular picture, totally black across the bottom half (the range, in shadow) and a brilliant, brilliant streaky orange across the top half (the entire sky, alight with refraction from the setting sun). Bushfire colours.

Life is a Highway

Thanks to my four grandchildren, Cars is one of my favourite movies. And thanks to family links and family history research, the Hume Highway is my own personal version of Route 66. Over the 25 years since I moved from Sydney to Melbourne, I've probably made 100 or more return trips along that road.

A little frisson of expectation always grips me as I leave the Metropolitan Ring Road in Melbourne and join the road heading north to Sydney. It's quite a while along that road before I see the first distance sign for Sydney - 820 km. It's a sobering thought for a solo driver. If my car had a GPS system I would hear what my niece's GPS voice says to her: 'stay on this road for a long, long time'. About eight more hours, in fact, allowing for speed restrictions and comfort stops. It's essential to watch your speed - along the way there is always at least one 'Highway Patrol' police car lurking behind a bush, waiting to nab a speeding driver.

My aim is always to make the journey in one day, preferably during daylight hours. Yesterday, on my latest trip northwards, it was a perfect spring day, one of those 'good to feel alive' days. I made record time - only 9 1/4 hours, door-to-door.

Over the years, I've developed a few favourite stopping places. Violet Town is a real country town only a kilometre off the highway, has clean public toilets in a park in the centre of town, and has a country-style cafe serving basic refreshments. If I can wait just a little bit longer, Macdonalds at Glenrowan provides some trees to shade a parked car. Here I order my coffee as I head for the Ladies, pick it up on the way back, and sit outside on a bench in the fresh air as a welcome break from driving.  Yesterday I wondered to myself why I never seem to divert via Glenrowan township itself (famous for the last stand of Ned Kelly), or Chiltern (famous for Lakeview House, where Henry Handel Richardson lived as a child). I've visited both places years ago, and both involve very minor diversions from the main drag, just like Violet Town. Must try them as alternative coffee and toilet stops another time.

My next stop is usually Gundagai, for petrol. Large trees near the rather tacky Dog on the Tucker Box tourist attraction offer a solid wall of shade in the heat of summer, a rare find along most of the route. Here I often park to eat a late lunch, a sandwich from my cooler bag and a mug of tea from my thermos. Most of the commercial food offerings along the way are very unattractive and very unhealthy, by my reckoning.

It couldn't be an easier drive - from my home at South Melbourne to my destination in Sydney, only two sets of traffic lights interrupt the journey - one at Kingsway in Melbourne and the other at Willoughby Road, Naremburn, north of the Harbour Bridge. The pedestrian crossing in Holbrook doesn't count and, in any case, the highway will soon bypass that town.

On the return journey from Sydney, I divert to Mittagong for a coffee and comfort stop and usually make it as far as Holbrook before petrol is needed. The side-street alongside the submarine attraction offers shade for a parked car, covered picnic tables and public toilets. Otherwise, if petrol is running low, I stop at South Gundagai, where the Shell service station offers a tiny bit of shade for your car and a shaded picnic bench where you can eat your lunch.

Some see the road as very boring now, but mostly the scenery is very pleasant and reminiscent of that old radio serial 'Blue Hills'. There are several truly spectacular vistas - for example the view from the hill above Jugiong and the view across to Mt Buffalo on the Sydney-side of the Glenrowan hill. Yesterday the mountains were snow-capped. As a solo driver, I keep myself awake by ensuring the fresh air intake is open and blowing cool air on my face, and by singing along with my collection of CDs. The long day in the car is my 'Time Out' from writing and simply flies by.

Green and Gold

With the London Olympics extravanganza still a talking point, my latest trip along the Hume Highway re-affirmed the significance and relevance of our national colours. The mid-August timing of my journey, combined with several years of La Nina weather, meant that my journey south from Sydney today was a 'green and gold' feast for the eyes. Despite twenty five years of regular trips, never before have the roadside plantings of different wattle species, set against a backdrop of lush green paddocks, made such a visual impact on me.

The patriotic spectacle in New South Wales became much more patchy south of the border. Did the recent decade-long drought in Victoria eradicate the gold from its Hume Highway verges?

Tourism authorities would do well to encourage further investment in wattle plantings along the full length of this road. Western Australia promotes its wildflowers. The north-eastern states of America promote their 'fall' - that brilliant display of autumn foliage across vast areas of country. That rather daunting road sign as you leave the outskirts of the Sydney metropolitan area proclaims the distance to Melbourne as 830 km. Why couldn't it be known as August's spectacular 'green and gold' wattle drive?