Back on the Road
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27th January 2009
Latitude 38'10, Longitude 144'20
Start Mileage: 8934km
Finish Mileage: 9587km
Fuel reading: 8.1/100kms
Trip Notes: highways, religion and a perfect pitch
We drove straight into the sunset. The Skoda Octavia Scout hugged the winding turns of the Great Ocean Road as we tracked west along the achingly beautiful coastline of the Southern Ocean. The sandstone cliffs glowed one last time, before the sun disappeared below the darkening ocean and left the sky streaked in purple, pink and gold. We took the long way to Daylesford. After the tourist crush around Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road opens up into a sweeping coastal road. We stopped in at the Tower Bridge, stood awestruck by the ethereal beauty of the Twelve Apostles, and turned inland at Heywood.
The Glenelg Highway might play second fiddle to the Great Ocean Road in the tourist books, but it was no less magnificent driving. It skirts the edge of the Grampian mountain range, links the beautifully preserved towns of Victorian gold country and leads straight into the heart of rural Victoria. We were back on the road.
Daylesford is up country. The town is centred on its football grounds. The perfectly trimmed, lovingly watered oval of green grass looked like an embedded jewel against the dry brown land. It is a shrine to the great Australian religion of AFL, and travellers beware: thou shalt not enter the lands of regional Australia without knoweth the game.
The glorious game of Aussie Rules made legends out of ordinary blokes, brought together fragmented communities and staved off the torment of drought. It intoxicated an entire town with the glory of a perfect mark. And made valuable contributions to the Australian vernacular – whether inventing entirely new words (they got a buckley’s of beating us) or breathing life into old ones (You are bloody useless Wilson).
Video artist Malcolm McKinnon is recording the stories. He is combing tiny towns like Waaia, Swift Creek, Granya and Korweinguboora for tales of barefoot legends, eccentric umpires and wild inter-town brawls football stories, and tapping into one of Australia’s richest cultural veins.
Our day finished in the afternoon. We wanted to stay until the weekend game, but were already behind schedule. We lingered a moment more than necessary to look up at the goalposts, smiled at each other wistfully, and then hit the road.
James