Is road tripping a distinctly Australian thing? We are such a big country it takes hours to get from one town to the next. We think nothing of ‘eating the road’, chewing up kilometres to reach family and friends. Post Christmas my family are gathering for a big birthday celebration up north and the clan are coming from far and wide for the event.

There’s something exciting about all the preparations for a road trip; washing the car, washing the dog, packing, unpacking, repacking, everything fitting in like a puzzle with no room to spare. All to get that early start and beat the traffic. I like navigating the best, finding roadside stops along the route for every hour and a half, to rejuvenate, stretch and change drivers.

As a kid landmarks and place names were my first navigation tools, especially during the regular three hour drive to my grandparent’s house at Point Lonsdale. Over the Yarra River, then Footscray, Spotswood and Altona before hitting the Geelong Road. My favourite car game was spot the lighthouse as we crested the hill, knowing that we were nearly there as we passed the salt lakes and golf links.

For longer road trips dad would send away to get a set of RACV strip maps of our route. I used to flip the pages to follow the routes; up to the Murray River at Mildura, to Sydney to visit my aunt and even to Canberra in the snow which was a bit disastrous when the car broke down.

My last family driving trip with my parents was to Tasmania when I was 17 years old. It changed the direction of my life. I took a slew of photographs with my Instamatic camera which led my art teacher into swapping me from painting to photography in my HSC year. I started dreaming of becoming a photojournalist, but that’s another story…

Atlases and stamps fuelled my travel bug when I was young. Later it was the green and brown contour maps which proved invaluable to plot a flat path for travelling with our horse and wagon. City maps proved great for international travel but rail maps are still my favourite with all those coloured lines converging at places with exotic names.

I know I have restless feet and I’m glad to be on the road again in Australia after having spent much of the last three years travelling back and forth to the northern hemisphere. 

Some of my first collages and artist books were created from maps. My collection of maps call me to experiment with them as cyanotype blueprints as I prepare for my upcoming residency in Mornington and a cyanotype workshop. But for now I’ll let those maps lead me north for a road tripping holiday. Happy travels!