Friday Pragmatism | Drive

I’ve just come back from the most wonderful drive with my parents out in (slightly) rural Victoria. Great music, great company, great roads, spectacular weather; all in all a wonderful day of touring.

For those familiar with Victoria, the rout we took today was;

Up the Hume Highway to Kilmore.
West through Lancefield to Woodend.
West again to Trentham and then south-west to Newbury.
South through Blackwood and the other hamlets and eventually to Myrniong and the Wester Freeway to return east to metropolitan Melbourne.

The music I had playing as I drove included;
The New Cruise – Summer Edition (a compilation of modern bossa and smooth electronic music to get us through the metro regions)
Lisa Miskovsky – Fallingwater
The Cardigans – Long Gone Before Daylight
A Camp – self-titled first album
Zeep – self-titled first album and also People & Things

All up the tour was around 270 kilometres. The temperature stayed between 19°C and 23°C all day with clear blue skies only sporadically punctuated by white cloud – I could not ask for more perfect day-time driving weather.

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I’ve always been in love with the land along the Hume from just before Beveridge through to Kilmore. It’s dry and dusty land in the summer but it’s rolling hills and broad, scrubby plains are beautiful. Each tree seems to have been placed by an artist and the lay of the land is simply stunning.

I’d never driving the road from Kilmore through Lancefield to Woodend, but it’s quickly become one of my favourite roads. The land continues to be beautiful with a little more green as the land retains a bit more moisture, but simply the curvature of the roads and the land surrounding them are gorgeous. I will definitely be driving this route again as it’s one of the most pleasurable roads to experience driving pleasure in a breathtaking environment.

The roads from Woodend through Tylden to Trentham is almost as beautiful. It might sound repetitive to mention rolling hills, plains and trees again, but each region is truly unique and a joy to drive. This region is much greener and the various catchments in the properties we passed have remained reasonably filled. Were I a millionaire, this would definitely be Ferrari and Lamborghini country.

South of Trentham we pass through a state forest which always makes great driving between the trees, until we reached a clearer area where Newbury seems to have just sprouted like some kind of tiny tree. This is seriously breathtaking country and dad in particular is very seriously looking to move here. Mum loves the area but has some slightly less irrational than usual fears about bush-fires. Nevertheless, they’re serious enough to have sent some emails about properties there to the various real-estate agents the moment we got back, so hopefully something will come of it in the near future. I’d love for them to move up there; surrounded by amazing landscapes with supreme driving roads, and it would make the most wonderful retreat away from the city. I probably couldn’t live in such a place for too long myself being somewhat younger and loving cities, but I do still thoroughly enjoy good doses of the country.

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Today signified some of the most divine driving I’ve ever done in my life. I love the ocean and I’ve been meaning to drive The Great Ocean Road in the new car (which is now three odd years old), but I’m tempted to call today’s drive my most favoured so far. There is nothing like driving through rolling scrub-land, green fields punctuated by stands of trees, and dense, Australian forest in the sun with a cool breeze, windows down, sunroof fully open and with great music and company.