Overseas travel ban fuels home
AUSTRALIA might be about to experience a road trip renaissance, according to Heather Ewart, the host of ABC TV’s Back Roads.
With international travel at a standstill and coronavirus restrictions slowly being eased, Ewart says regional car trips could spike in coming months as we emerge from COVID-19 lockdown.
“There are some incredible places to visit which a lot of Australians don’t do because we’re so busy saving up for overseas trips or maybe heading to the same places like Port Douglas in Queensland during winter. But there are heaps of great places out there,” Ewart (pictured) says.
“We can’t fly anywhere at the moment – certainly not internationally – so I kind of hope it will make Australians realise there are lots of great places to see on our doorstep and help give own economy a boost.”
Ewart hopes to play a small part in the resurgence with the new season of Back Roads, which is set to premiere tonight. Taking the road less travelled, political journalist Ewart visits remote regions and communities all across Australia in the hit series, which is now entering its sixth season.
Her latest journey includes a 12,000km, two-week trip across the Nullarbor Plain, beginning in Ceduna, SA, and finishing up in Lucky Bay, in Esperance, WA.
“There was so much to see and do ... we saw so many interesting things from underground caves that I didn’t know existed, to the Great Australian Bight, which of course is always wonderful,” she says.
“We stopped at different roadhouses, and now there’s even a golf course on the Nullarbor, which was primarily introduced to get people to slow down and stop speeding.
“You wouldn’t call them rolling greens, but you can stop and have a round of golf and then move on.
“We also did some whale watching and met some great characters who choose to live in these isolated parts because they love it.”
Ewart has travelled an incredible
40,816km since the program debuted in 2015, but picturesque Lucky Bay was definitely a highlight,” she says.
“It was beautiful, just stunning. I’ve always wanted to go there and we finally got there and it was October, not exactly the summer months, but that water was so beautiful, I took one look at it and decided I needed to have a swim,” she says. “I leapt in, and there were kangaroos bounding across the beach... you’ll never see water quite that colour.”
Ewart and her Back Roads team also visit small towns, including Rokewood in Victoria, Biloela in Queensland and Penguin in Tasmania, among others, during this season’s eight action-packed episodes.
“I really, really hope that this series in particular, now that people have been through lockdown, will really give a spike to these little towns that we’ve visited. I know how they’ve been doing it tough, so I hope people get off their couch and into their cars and going out to visit these places,” she says.