Back Roads host Heather Ewart concludes her lap of Australia with top tips for road trips for NSW and Qld

From Victoria’s high country to the great Nullarbor in South Australia to cruising past pristine waters in Lucky Bay up through the mineral-rich landscapes of northern WA, we have already coated so most of the well-known and hidden gems that Australian highways have to supply. 

Now it is time to conclude our lap of Aussie highway journeys within the japanese states.

There’s one thing a few highway journey by outback New South Wales or Queensland that may make you are feeling as if you are in the course of a Banjo Paterson poem — and really, you usually are.

Hay, Hell and Booligal

Again within the day, the flat saltbush Hay Plain within the NSW Riverina starred in one of many famend Australian bush poet’s extra well-known works. He referred in removed from flattering tones to ‘Hay, Hell and Booligal’. 

I will declare my bias from the outset, I’ve all the time liked the Riverina, since my teenage years once I shared a pupil home with a couple of women from large sheep properties up that approach. Not a little bit of it ever represented hell to me.

They have been affluent occasions when merino wool dominated, and the Riverina was teeming with younger jackaroos in dusty utes and prepared money to spend on the town on a Saturday night time.  

Debilitating droughts and a shift to different types of farming modified all that, however the Riverina’s wealthy historical past can nonetheless be felt if you begin your journey from Deniliquin by to Hay, Booligal and Hillston.

The Hay Plain is as majestic as ever, particularly proper on sundown, and if you hit the broad predominant avenue of Hay, its grand buildings communicate volumes a few bygone period. As you drive in the direction of Hillston, maintain an eye fixed out for any fundraising occasions that includes the Vagg household — Booligal station house owners who like to recite Banjo Paterson, they usually’re good at it too.  

Additional north in NSW, you may nonetheless get reminders of Banjo, however you could not discover a better distinction to the Riverina than the aptly named Waterfall Approach. 

Waterfalls, nationwide parks and brumbies  

Starting on the charming coastal city of Sawtell, wend your approach by a number of the most scenic and luxurious countryside within the state.

From the luxurious rainforests round Bellingen to the river valleys and rolling hills of Dorrigo and Ebor, spectacular waterfalls abound. Dangar falls within the Dorrigo Nationwide Park, and Ebor Falls and Wollomombi Gorge and Falls, to call a couple of, are a should.

The highway stretches 185 kilometres to Armidale and alongside the best way close to Ebor you would possibly even spot a wild brumby or two, written about in Banjo poetry. 

Birthplace of Waltzing Matilda 

In fact, Banjo’s best-known work must be Waltzing Matilda, Australia’s unofficial nationwide anthem, and to be taught extra about the place it originated, it is advisable to cross the border and head for western Queensland and the pleasant outback city of Winton. 

It is a spot that punches properly above its weight. Banjo penned Waltzing Matilda in these elements in 1896, so the city determined to arrange a Waltzing Matilda Museum. When it burned down in 2015, they constructed a brand new one — greater and higher.

Simply out of city, Winton also boasts an impressive Age of Dinosaurs Museum created after a neighborhood farmer stumbled throughout dinosaur bones whereas mustering sheep again in 1999. 

One other private spotlight for me when Again Roads visited for our first collection was taking a trip on the again of the then native mayor’s motorcycle two hours down the highway to the tiny settlement of Middleton.

This outdated Cobb and Co cease has a pub and that is about it. However what a historic pub it’s and a favorite watering gap for a lot of a traveller crossing western Queensland into the Northern Territory.

The coast to the Gulf of Carpentaria

If you happen to have been to move in the direction of Far North Qld as an alternative, give severe thought to taking the Savannah Approach from Cairns to the Gulf of Carpentaria — a highway I would by no means heard of until I hooked up with a travelling hairdresser and her offsider at Innisfail back in 2016.

From the coast to the tablelands and ending within the Gulf, you will not be disenchanted by the entertaining native characters and number of surroundings.

The small city of Forsayth is a perfect overnighter and ensure you permit time for a detour to see the pure marvel and historic landforms of close by Cobbold Gorge.  

Again on Savannah Approach, because the land flattens out, I like to recommend relaxation stops on the outdated gold rush cities of Georgetown and Croydon, and if you hit Karumba within the Gulf, you may be properly and really able to strive catching some barramundi — what the city is famed for, together with its prawn trawlers.  

I assume Banjo Paterson should have handed this fashion too in some unspecified time in the future. He appears to have been all over the place else. Why not comply with in his footsteps, take a break and simply hit the highway? I can assure you will not look again.

Heather returns to the display screen with a brand new collection of Again Roads beginning January 3, 2022 on ABC TV at 7:30pm. Till then, head over to ABC iview to look at the present’s earlier seven collection.