Andrew Miller: An epic long drive can provide but a glimpse into our great, vast country

West Australian

25-05-2025

'Whose woods these are I think I know . . .'
begins one of my favourite poems about a journey.
Keeping things in proportion is challenging these days, so I hatched an idea that a road trip might refresh my perspective.
The drive from Perth to Broome, with some stops along the coast — 2800 km or so — would do the trick.
An opportunity to use the open road as an epic blank page.
My son described it perfectly — 'there are some things that just want you to do them.'
I talked him into coming with me to share the driving and adventure, but in reality, it was a hostage situation — five days of unavoidable Dad time, often beyond mobile range.
He's a man now, and I need him more than ever.
There are many ways for fathers to admit this — we come up with plans involving fishing rods, sports, food — whatever works.
Mine was a folding map.
In contrast to a tiny Google navigation window, a proper map is magnificent.
After spreading it out across the table, a world of possibilities opens up.
Your attention-seeking, spying phone can never inspire wanderlust the way a real map does.
Unlike some brazen lands, the Australian continent does not readily reveal its naked form.
It is shy about its wide burn scars and its ancient rocky ribs sticking right through its hot, sandy skin.
The sun, the distance, the spiky fire-loving plants, the hidden water and the lethal wildlife are all cues for us to move along.
These woods only reveal themselves fully to the people who lived here respectfully for tens of thousands of years.
We late arrivals, can only catch impressions from our speeding vehicles and brief stops.
With their lack of proper scale and saturation, our digital photographs also struggle to do the landscape justice, but they can summon analogue memories of time shared with someone very important to us.
We planned four days on the road, with a rest day in the middle.
No night driving — it's a more capricious country after dark. When the spirits come out, anything can happen.
After two days, we got into the Zen rhythm of the white line, and the rushing trees slowed down.
When speed limits dropped in rare townships, it felt like we could have opened the door to jog alongside.
We saw the ink-black sky at night from Karajini and out near Eighty Mile Beach.
The brilliant scarf of the Milky Way was thrown over us, while the Gods shone their many sparkling torches through a colander dropped on top.
Further north, even the 2.5 million-year-old light finally arriving here from the Andromeda galaxy seemed playful.
The Andromeda paradox is a theory that, from each individual's perspective, the events occurring in an incredibly distant galaxy at any given moment are quite different, because relative motion significantly affects time at a distance.
It supports the scientists' view that none of us ever lives in the exact same 'now,' and that the universe is four-dimensional.
Luckily, we don't need to understand astrophysics to know that our different perspectives can cause misunderstanding on every scale.
We need to keep the people we love close, during our short trip through this chaotic, incoherent universe.
It is too easy to drift apart, one day at a time.
Like life itself, all journeys come to an end.
We each have a destination, as Robert Frost said:
'But I have promises to keep . . .
And miles to go before I sleep.'
My son and I travelled together in the same direction, regarding this incomprehensible country from the same perspective.
Australia was great, but it was not what I came for. I got to hear his thoughts on playlists and life; we laughed and ate together at sunset on a roadhouse veranda, as giant prehistoric road-trains rumbled in and peacocks called up the moon.
Those miles are done, and now I will sleep, smiling.