I love to seek out the roads less travelled

My favourite place to go is where I’ve never been. It’s a rule of thumb out bush, if we have the time, and it drives the tin lids bananas if they’re with me.

This summer, let’s celebrate the great beauty of our ordinary lives, in this extraordinary land called Australia.

Should the Maps function on our phones have a directive that sends us the loveliest way as opposed to the fastest? The idea has been debated on X in recent times and I’m coming down firmly on the roads less taken. Because the longer I exist in this world of repeated brutal astonishments, the more I seek beauty. As amelioration, circuit-breaker and tonic.

At the start of last winter we went in search of snow. It was early in the ski season but more than anything we wanted beauty, not that tearing-down-slopes malarkey. We climbed beyond a sparsely carpeted Thredbo, higher, then higher, heading into country that felt like it was on the roof of the world.

Eagle’s Nest, Thredbo, NSW. Picture by Sean Davey.

The sky widened. The snow gums became more stunted and twisted, as if sculpted by demonic whirlwinds. We finally reached our summit: the roof of this wonder-world, absent of any other people. And amid snow-burdened gums and ice-frosted heathland we found the quiet that is a presence, the silence that almost hums. This landscape like no other on Earth was poised under a sunset glowing an apocalyptic, billowy, orangey-pink, glowering over pencil-like tree trunks still blackened from summer bushfires long ago.

Oh this land, this beauty. How lucky we all are to have it, to exist alongside so many wonders a mere drive from us. How lucky we all are to exist in safety; so removed, physically, from the warring horrors of other worlds. This wonderland on that early winter day thrummed my heart like a cat in bliss. Long ago I’d found the silence that almost hurts in central Australia, too; beyond the people, at dusk, when the Earth opens up to receive its benediction of calming night. And also in Antarctica, on the ice planes sliding over a frozen sea with icebergs gleaming in the distance. This is the world at rest; beautiful, isolated rest, far removed from the cacophony of human mess.

My favourite place to go is where I’ve never been. It’s a rule of thumb out bush, if we have the time, and it drives the tin lids bananas if they’re with me. “Are we there yet?” is their sole focus, for mum’s adventures always mean a longer drive on narrower roads. I’m always up for it, because it’s all about the turn-off. The little village tucked off the highway. The back streets. Dirt tracks. Roads less taken. It’s all about finding the unexpected, astonishing beauty of this land around unknown corners.

Virginia Woolf wrote, “The beauty of the world... has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder.” And my heart is cut, often now, because of the fragility of the beauty around us. The knowledge of voracious destruction, nibbling so greedily at nature’s doorstep. So of course our phone’s Maps function should be able to send us the loveliest way, as opposed to the quickest, if we so choose. Bring on the scenic routes, to thrill us, instruct and galvanise – because one day those vistas may need to be preserved. “You can live an easy life or a beautiful life,” declared British ceramicist Sophie Wilson. I choose a beautiful life; seeking beauty, delighting in it, and urgently wanting it saved.

Back in June Julian Assange’s father spoke of the beauty in the ordinary, when asked how he was feeling as his son returned to Australia. “He will be able to … walk up and down the beach and feel the sand through his toes in winter, that lovely chill. And be able to learn how to be patient and play with your children for a couple of hours. All of the great beauty of ordinary life.”

This summer, let’s celebrate the great beauty of our ordinary lives, in this extraordinary land called Australia. Let’s celebrate the natural beauty surely arrowed into our heart; the gift of this land. Because, to misquote Keats, a land of beauty is a joy for ever. Happy holidays.