A New Kind of Freedom

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Think back on your most memorable road trip.

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Late May 2021, between the two NSW COVID lockdowns, we took a road trip because it was the easiest kind of travel that still felt possible. No airports, no border rules, no sudden cancellations. It wasn’t the trip we would have chosen in a normal year. It was a detour.

And that’s what I remember: how a detour can start as a compromise and end up becoming the point. It also made me notice a question I didn’t have language for at the time: what does freedom feel like when you’re still half-locked down?

We began with something familiar—a short stay in the Blue Mountains. We have a favourite restaurant in Blackheath, and we celebrated my birthday there. It was ordinary in the best way: a table, a meal, other people nearby. After 2020, that sort of normality felt like something you couldn’t take for granted.

From there we drove to Orange for a couple of nights. We caught up with friends who’ve retired there, and that gave the trip its first real warmth. We also visited a few wineries and walked through the Botanical Gardens. Orange is an easy place to like: good food, local wine, and enough space to slow down.

Then we drove west to Brewarrina, specifically to see the Fish Traps on the Barwon River (Baiame’s Ngunnhu). I’d heard of them, but seeing them in person changed the trip. We visited the Brewarrina Aboriginal Cultural Museum and did a tour led by local Aboriginal people. It was funny, generous, and hospitable.

The traps sit in the riverbed near town: stone structures designed with a deep understanding of water, fish, and flow. I don’t know the exact age but what mattered was what they represented—engineering, stewardship, and long continuity.

It also brought a harder thought. Parts of the site have been damaged over time as colonial priorities impacted the river and the region. It’s confronting to realise how quickly older knowledge can be dismissed as “primitive” when it doesn’t fit the plans of those in power.

From Brewarrina we did a day trip to Bourke, visited a local art collective, and drove around the area. Then we headed east again, passing through Walgett on the way to Dunedoo.

Dunedoo had been in the headlines a few weeks earlier after a disgruntled local reportedly drove a tractor through the town golf course, tearing up greens and fairways. We had dinner at the pub on Saturday night. It was busy, and it gave a sense of community life continuing.

But the other layer never went away. Everyone was COVID-sensitive. Check-ins, rules, caution. That night the news reported that a COVID-positive person had visited Mendooran. We’d driven through Mendooran earlier that day. The odds of exposure were probably low, but the feeling was the point: you could be travelling and still have your stomach tighten because everything could change with a single alert.

That’s what I mean by half-locked down. We had movement, but not ease.

From Dunedoo we drove to the Hunter Valley for a couple of quiet days—wineries, reading, doing very little. It was restful. And it made the detour clearer in hindsight: COVID narrowed our options, so we explored NSW in a way we might not have otherwise.