Having said that, I have just travelled in a car from Canberra to Melbourne and back again, which amounted to about 14 hours of mild nausea. The reason for this insanity was because I was visiting people in country Victoria with some family members. When I say country Victoria, I mean the outer suburbs of Melbourne.
The trip from Canberra to Melbourne is horrendously boring, as it is throughout much of regional Australia. In addition to my boredom and queasiness, this journey was made worse by my inability to sit still for more than five minutes.
It has been years and years since I drove through Ned Kelly country in Glenrowan in Victoria. There is a sign that advises unsuspecting tourists that Australia's favourite serial cop killer was born in the area and that there is a shrine in the place of his Last Stand, where he gave the police some lip and refused to get into the back of a paddywagon while yelling 'don't you know who I am?!' Unfortunately for Ned, the sign shows a man flingin' his pistols like he was the missing Wiggle in the silver skivvy.
I bet it wouldn't have been his Last Stand if he had been in possession of a Navman or a Navsheila. "You. Are. Entering. A. Trap! Turn. Right. Now! Turn. Right. Now!"
The Navman we were using was so old that it possibly could have been from Kelly's era. If you don't update the maps, your SatNav is just a clueless, annoying British woman. I wonder how Big Ned navigated his way around the place anyway? Did the Kelly Gang have walkie talkies? Did he do what tourists do when their Navmans aren't working and just follow the big M's? Why doesn't Wikipedia give me the answers I really want?
McDonald's should do a McNavman, given that Australians just travel from Macca's to Macca's anyway when they travel distances. I wonder what type of coffee Ned would have fancied from McCafe? Perhaps a skinny, half-strength chai latte. Or maybe he would have chosen something slightly more bushrangery. I can certainly imagine him popping in for a McHappy meal during a hard day of gruelling bushranging activities.
At least a road trip through country Victoria would have been vaguely interesting in 1870, with a high possibility of being mugged by a horse-bound criminal with a tin bucket on his head. Rather than contradictory nanny state signs screaming at me to "Rest NOW!" and "Micronaps KILL!" on the same stretch of road, country folk back in the day probably would have had "Watch out for bushrangers for the next 20 kilometres" or some such.
Kelly has been glorified in the media over the years as a bit of a rockstar, but, in reality, he is one of those blokes who robbed a 7-Eleven, shot the sheriff and ended up on Crime Stoppers. I'm guessing he wasn't that bright, given that he wore a tin can on his head.
I didn't go to Kelly's last shootout lookout, because I figured it had been turned into a tourist trap courtesy of a McDonald's sponsorship or a contract with the Wiggles. Maybe I'll check it out with my supersonic binoculars the next time I'm soaring over country Victoria on a jet plane.
My mum tells me that she and her friends used to ride their bikes up these mountain ranges back in the day for something to do and they would steal oranges when they got to the top for something else to do. This is how you solve the so-called obesity epidemic. Build more bikes and plant more mountain ranges and orange trees. Alternatively, monitor what your kids eat and kick them outside to the backyard occasionally.
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