Today was a road trip north — the long haul from Carlingford up the coastal motorway to Kempsey, with the full road-movie feel. The traffic was chaotic as far as Newcastle and then, past the Bulahdelah mountains and on through Taree and Port Macquarie, it finally eased. It was a scorching day, so we pulled in at Old Bar Beach for a quick dip: the water warm, the surf genuinely wild. This is home for the next five nights.
The point where the drive stops fighting you is not accidental. North of Newcastle you join the Pacific Highway, whose Sydney-to-Brisbane length was progressively duplicated over more than a decade of roadworks and finally completed in 2020 — some 660 kilometres of it turned to divided carriageway. It’s why the chaos loosens into an easy run once the last of the city is behind you.