Continental Drifters

Depending on whom you talk to, Australia’s Highway 1 is the world’s longest road, its longest continuous highway, or the longest without crossing a national border. Whatever the qualification, there’s no doubt it’s long. Some 15,000 km of multi-lane freeway, dual carriageway, two-lane bitumen and corrugated dirt, it circles the Australian mainland, never far from the coast, and bisects Tasmania.

Its primary function is to link the nation’s major cities, apart from Canberra. But it has always attracted intrepid tourists, and, in recent years, its commercial traffic has been supplemented by the four-wheel-drives of “gray nomads.” These older Australians, many of them retirees, are gaily squandering the children’s inheritance to see the country, their caravans and motor homes tootling contentedly through the emptiness of desert and bush, turning off to see the sights, oblivious to the thunder of 53-m-long road trains.

For this year’s Australian Journeys special issue, we decided to tootle along the highway too. Last month, seven writer-photographer teams hit the open road—with open minds, shutters and notebooks—to record the things we saw and the people we met. A different team, or a different month, would produce a very different collection of stories and images, but we hope that together our stories give a fair taste of life along the highway, and perhaps sharpen your desire to see it for yourselves.

As a rule, Time South Pacific reports on the region’s most influential people. Here, our focus is on Australians who live away from the big cities and reveal other facets of the nation’s character. Tom Dusevic met Peter Burton, who turns grass into T-bones in the Kimberley; Elizabeth Keenan visited the kitchen of Warrant Officer John Benstead, 22 years an Army cook and now based in Townsville; Michael Fitzgerald tracked down Doug Pekin, a dogger who maintains 500 km of dingo-proof fence on the Nullarbor; Daniel Williams joined hands at a Sunday service with the dwindling faithful of Darnum, Victoria; and Rory Callinan met the crocodile-shooting, yarn-spinning “Wolf” Arneth of Normanton, Queensland. Our stories are brought to life by some of Australia’s finest photographers: Ross Bird, Paul Blackmore, Stephen Dupont, Randy Larcombe, Trent Parke, David Dare Parker, Peter Solness and Robert Young.

Finally, in the spirit of celebrating the normally unsung, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the contributions of our art director, Michelle Turcsnyi, and production manager, Gemma Maloney. It’s all very well for our writers and photographers to return from afar with their dazzling jumble of words and pictures. But it is Turcsnyi’s flair and expertise that marry them in coherent, eye-pleasing fashion, while the unflappable Maloney, besieged by creative chaos, ensures that this and every other issue of Time meet not just the highest standards of magazine quality but their many tight deadlines. Michelle and Gemma both perform their roles with great good humor, and I am a grateful and admiring beneficiary of their professionalism. Depending on whom you talk to, Australia’s Highway 1 is the world’s longest road, its longest continuous highway, or the longest without crossing a national border. Whatever the qualification, there’s no doubt it’s long. Some 15,000 km of multi-lane freeway, dual carriageway, two-lane bitumen and corrugated dirt, it circles the Australian mainland, never far from the coast, and bisects Tasmania.

Its primary function is to link the nation’s major cities, apart from Canberra. But it has always attracted intrepid tourists, and, in recent years, its commercial traffic has been supplemented by the four-wheel-drives of “gray nomads.” These older Australians, many of them retirees, are gaily squandering the children’s inheritance to see the country, their caravans and motor homes tootling contentedly through the emptiness of desert and bush, turning off to see the sights, oblivious to the thunder of 53-m-long road trains.For this year’s Australian Journeys special issue, we decided to tootle along the highway too. Last month, seven writer-photographer teams hit the open road—with open minds, shutters and notebooks—to record the things we saw and the people we met. A different team, or a different month, would produce a very different collection of stories and images, but we hope that together our stories give a fair taste of life along the highway, and perhaps sharpen your desire to see it for yourselves.

As a rule, Time South Pacific reports on the region’s most influential people. Here, our focus is on Australians who live away from the big cities and reveal other facets of the nation’s character. Tom Dusevic met Peter Burton, who turns grass into T-bones in the Kimberley; Elizabeth Keenan visited the kitchen of Warrant Officer John Benstead, 22 years an Army cook and now based in Townsville; Michael Fitzgerald tracked down Doug Pekin, a dogger who maintains 500 km of dingo-proof fence on the Nullarbor; Daniel Williams joined hands at a Sunday service with the dwindling faithful of Darnum, Victoria; and Rory Callinan met the crocodile-shooting, yarn-spinning “Wolf” Arneth of Normanton, Queensland. Our stories are brought to life by some of Australia’s finest photographers: Ross Bird, Paul Blackmore, Stephen Dupont, Randy Larcombe, Trent Parke, David Dare Parker, Peter Solness and Robert Young.

Finally, in the spirit of celebrating the normally unsung, it is a pleasure to acknowledge the contributions of our art director, Michelle Turcsnyi, and production manager, Gemma Maloney. It’s all very well for our writers and photographers to return from afar with their dazzling jumble of words and pictures. But it is Turcsnyi’s flair and expertise that marry them in coherent, eye-pleasing fashion, while the unflappable Maloney, besieged by creative chaos, ensures that this and every other issue of Time meet not just the highest standards of magazine quality but their many tight deadlines. Michelle and Gemma both perform their roles with great good humor, and I am a grateful and admiring beneficiary of their professionalism.