In praise of the local
If for not much else, we can thank COVID for the road-trip revolution that’s seen many of us rediscovering our regions.
If for not much else, we can thank COVID for the road-trip revolution that’s seen many of us rediscovering our local regions and, as more state borders open, venturing into what may have felt like an underwhelming “over there” a year ago but now seems like the great and glorious unknown. With interstate air routes increasingly back in business, it’s simpler still.
How perceptions shift when we are more or less grounded. The cultural cringe has been tipped on its head to become the championing of the here, now and local.
Neighbours of mine who go to southern Thailand once a year have decided upon Queensland in early 2021. They ask me what I know about the Whitsundays, as if it’s some glistening Shangri-la, distant and unknowable. Their last trip, it transpires, was to World Expo ’88 in Brisbane. Time to sit down with a cuppa and do a reality check.
But I am guilty as well. I’d never been to Orange in the NSW central tablelands until July this year and what a revelation of food, wine, lifestyle and savvy community collaborations awaited.
I’ve driven twice to the Hunter Valley in 2020 and although I am a vigneron’s nightmare and don’t drink wine, it’s easy to appreciate the beauty of the vines and green-gold landscape and applaud the enterprise of producers large and small. And it’s 90 minutes by car from where I live; the same driving time, in the opposite direction, gets me to the international airport.
In Canberra in September, I showed my husband the old family home in Red Hill plus Forrest Primary School where, fresh off a ship from Southampton, a pale, skinny kid was taught how to swim after hours by a kind teacher who also encouraged me to drop the rounded Surrey vowels and to replace vest with singlet, swap plimsolls for sandshoes. So that was the nostalgia trip taken care of, combined with a sense of guilt that I’d not given any of it a thought for umpteen decades.
A fortnight ago, at Port Stephens, northeast of Newcastle, I sailed on a catamaran with travellers from across the state and we marvelled at this extraordinary marine park as bottlenose dolphins leapt in synchronised spurts and Captain Jason reeled off the fun facts.
Some passengers did the Titanic pose at the head of the bowsprit. I considered hopping into the boom-net for one gloriously mad moment.
I asked a couple who had earlier said they were from PNG if it was their first trip to Port Stephens. “Isn’t it fabulous!” I screeched into the wind.
“We moved to Australia in 1999 and have holidayed right here every year since,” they told me. “And you, Susan?” Point taken.