In Review: Circunvalación, The Story of a Highway
At the age of 40, former Jesuit priest Michael McGirr, armed with little more than a copy of Anna Karenina, a few extra clothes and a less-than-modern Chinese bicycle, set out on the 880-kilometre (547-mile) highway Hume linking Sydney and Melbourne.
While the journey forms the backdrop for McGirr’s Bypass: The Story of a Road, like all good travelogues, the journey itself is just a frame to hang the real story, which as the title suggests, is the story of the Hume Highway. From its humble beginnings as a rugged road through the Great Dividing Range, to its current status as a modern two-lane highway, the highway continues to serve as the main thoroughfare linking Australia’s two largest cities.
Bypass takes you on a wonderful journey covering Hume’s history and the policies that helped shape him. Along the way, you meet some great and not-so-great Aussie characters who have helped imprint the name of the road on the Aussie psyche. People like Cliff Young (great), 61, who in 1983 won the inaugural race from Sydney to Melbourne against competitors half his age. And men like Ivan Milat (not so great) who was convicted of the murder of seven young backpackers and hitchhikers, whom he buried in Belanglo State Forest.
Then there are the explorers Hamilton Hume (for whom the Highway was named) and William Hovell, who in 1824, along with at least six others, set out from Appin (near the present-day Sydney suburb of Campbelltown) for the first successful quest to reach Melbourne. We also meet truckers; rangers Ben Hall and Ned Kelly; and the poets ‘Banjo’ Paterson and Henry Lawson. We attend a Catholic mass in Tarcutta – officially the midway point between Sydney and Melbourne – where, aside from the priest and two parishioners, the only other people in attendance are the author of Bypass and his partner Jenny, who has already joined him on his trip to Melbourne.
We visit almost every country town along the route of the Hume Highway and learn something about each one. Towns like Goulburn, famous for Big Merino, and Goulburn Jail (where Ivan Milat is currently serving seven life sentences). We visit Holbrook and learn why the outer shell of the Oberon-class submarine HMAS Otway now sits in a public park in the center of town. In Chiltern we passed the childhood home of Australian writer Henry Handel Richardson and learned that Henry’s real name was Ethel Florence. We also learn that, like other women writers throughout history, Ethel wrote under a male pseudonym because at the time she felt that women didn’t have what it took to be great writers. And we also visited the town of Yass, and stopped by the Liberty Cafe for lunch before continuing our journey.
Now, I have to confess that this section of the book took me completely by surprise, and it was one of the great unexpected pleasures I got from Bypass. Let me explain why.
A few years ago, I was on my way back to Adelaide from Australia’s national capital, Canberra, and on a whim decided to stop by the town of Yass, which is about 60 kilometers from Canberra. Since I had been on the road less than an hour, and since I saw no reason to stop in Yass, I simply left the Hume Highway, drove into town and up Yass Main Street, all the while looking left and right taking a mental snapshot of the landscape. Then I headed back to the Hume and continued on my way.
It might seem like such a weird thing to do, but I’m prone to doing weird things just on a whim, and this was one of those times. The reason I am writing about this now is that as I was driving down Comur Street, the main thoroughfare of Yass, my eye fell on a little restaurant called the Liberty Café.
At this point I should mention that aside from putting this blog together, one of the other ‘strings’ I’ve added to my ‘arch’ is songwriting. So within minutes of going through Yass I started writing a song called The Liberty Café*. This song later appeared on my second album American Dream* and is still one of my favorite songs. However, I had always regretted not stopping at the cafe while driving through the city. I’m happy to say I made up for that slip earlier this year when I drove to Sydney again in April, this time stopping at the Liberty Cafe for a lunch break. In fact, I stopped there for the second time on my way back to Adelaide. So, as I say, it was a pleasant surprise to read about the Cafe on the Bypass and learn that of all the restaurants and cafes in Yass, Michael McGirr had also been drawn to the Liberty.
Throughout its many short chapters, Bypass also introduces us to some of the thousands of bumper stickers that adorn the rear of many Australian vehicles. In fact, McGirr uses stickers as chapter headings to introduce us to all aspects of his journey. Thus, the bumper sticker THE OLDER I GOT THE BETTER I WAS allows you to explain some of his own personal history and the reasons for his decision to travel on the Hume Highway. In THE GODDESS IS DANCING, McGirr introduces us to his traveling companion, Jenny, and in DEATH IS THE MANUFACTURER’S RECALL NOTICE, we pause to learn about some of the many roadside memorials that mark the sites of fatal traffic accidents lining the highway.
To conclude, Bypass is a book that ticks a lot of boxes in terms of my personal criteria for a good travelogue. The book is immensely enjoyable, always entertaining and informative, often surprising, and constantly full of weird facts and funny anecdotes. These keep the story going smoothly and effortlessly, which can’t always be said for Michael McGirr’s monumental bike ride.
I began this review by writing “like all good travelogues, the journey itself is just a frame to hang the real story, which as the title suggests, is the story of the Hume Highway.” But it must also be said that Bypass: The Story of a Road is not simply the story of a relatively short stretch of road (by Australian standards). It is also about the history of this country and the people who have helped build it and shape it into the modern land it has now become.
