Australia's Route 66: On BYPASS by Michael McGirr

For the past year or so, I worked part-time for a historical society. I regularly came into contact with people with all manner of specialties in Australian history, and hence picked up on all sorts of Australiana well beyond the First Fleet and Lachlan Macquarie. The most interesting project I worked on during my time there was collecting and editing information about the towns and localities along the New South Wales part of the Old Hume Highway. This material is in the process of being edited and turned into a self-guided driving brochure to be published in 2013 by the NSW Roads and Maritime Services (aka - the RTA).

The Old Hume Highway was the first road to run between Sydney and Melbourne (I almost wrote " to run from Sydney to Melbourne," but I think the Melbournites would object!). Its place in Australian history is best be compared to the U.S.'s Route 66. It opened up a lot of commerce opportunities, both through the trucking industry and the towns that flourished and sprung up on the road due to tourism. Its history is full of wild characters, bushrangers, floods, droughts, politics and it features in Australian songs and literature. Almost all of the Old Hume has been bypassed by the newer, more efficient Hume Highway, which has meant that a lot of the small towns along the way have either had to come up with creative ways to survive or fall into relative obscurity. It is a road with endless lore. 

I was going to remove the orange Salvos sticker, but since McGirr
and I share a love for op shops and second-hand books,
I thought it appropriate to leave it intact.

And so, when I recently spotted in my local Salvation Army a paperback called Bypass: The Story of a Road, I simply had to part with my gold coin for a copy. I didn't know what to expect, but from the description on the front, I was hoping that it would be a travelogue with something of a Bill Bryson style to it that would deepen some of what I had already learned.

It turned out to be a brilliant read about the author Michael McGirr's bicycle trip from Sydney to Melbourne. In many ways, it is very much in the style of Bill Bryson - a travelogue by a charming middle aged gent who depicts himself humbly as a bit unequipped for the journey, with a keen sense of humor and a knack for painting fascinating characters and quirky, forgotten history. To my surprise, McGirr was not only equal to Bryson's skill within the genre, but often even exceeding it (that is a fine compliment from me, as there is no writer I aspire to emulate more in these pages than Bryson). As a former Jesuit priest, McGirr brings a spirituality to his perspective that deepens his observations on travel and the traveler. 

His book is collectively about his own mental and physical journey, a love story, and a collage of some of the history that makes up the truth and legend of the Hume. 

Bill Bryson's In a Sunburnt Country (known as Down Under in Australia) is a requisite introductory book for many American expats, myself included. May I suggest that if you'd like to experience a more microscopic piece of Australian history with a similarly endearing, insightful and wry narrator, Bypass is a marvelous read.