The Highway One Travel Companion - 8: Guthalungra to Cairns

Australia's Highway One is a part of the life experience for most Australians. It's our great coastal highway, tracing out our coastline. Very many of us live on or near it and travel on some part of it every day. Pacific Highway, Princes Highway, Bruce Highway, A1, M1; it goes by these and many other names. It reaches into and through and links every State. At over 14,500 kilometres in length it's the world's longest national highway and to drive it is truly one of the world's great road trip adventures.

Highway One grew out of a highly variable collection of local, regional and State roads. Over time, the growing need for a rational system for the construction and maintenance of efficient and safe arterial highways across State borders led to increasing Federal Government involvement. Highway One was born in 1955 out of this already-existing network of State roads and became National Route 1 in the then-new National Route system.

Like pearls on a necklace, the length of Highway One is studded with pretty and uniquely Australian small towns, but huge sections of the old road have been bypassed and nearly forgotten over the decades. Nearly forgotten... but not quite. Old Highway One still lives on and we can revisit the old places of yesteryear.

With their unique "red route" navigation system, these books have been tailored to the needs of "grey nomads", backpackers, caravanning and camping enthusiasts, motoring clubs, tourists, holidaymakers and any other travellers looking to do more than simply get from A to B around Australia.

Packed with custom maps, enticing sketches, key travel tips, charming anecdotes from the road and rich detailed information, they're the must have guide books for all the visitor, traveller and tourist highlights this world class road trip exploration has to offer. From holiday planning to driving this classic road, there's nothing else like "The Highway One Travel Companion" available.

• Find and explore "the road less travelled"
• Travel back in time
• Rediscover our motoring history
• Return to Australia's "Mother Road"
• Drive Australia's "main street"
• Walk abandoned and forgotten stretches of Old Highway One
• Rediscover Australia's famous heartland towns
• Find Icons but beware Giants!

• Make the most of your road trip ...
  Don't leave home without the Highway One Travel Companion!

Auteur

Born in 1954 in Brisbane, David Taylor joined the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) at 17. After a varied 21-year career as a Radio Technician, Chinese Linguist and Intelligence Officer he founded Southern Computers & Software. After selling the business in 1995 he joined Industry Capability Network Queensland (ICN), part of a national network of independent industry assistance organisations, eventually becoming General Manager in 2007 and guiding the company through a successful merger with Brisbane-based QMI Solutions Ltd.

Always interested in small towns, great architecture and history, he drove famous Route 66 in 2009. Inspired by the experience and the many similarities between USA's Route 66 and the hidden gem that is Australia's Highway One, he became a full-time writer in 2011. He is now planning the next volumes in the Highway One Travel Companion series.

He lives just outside Murwillumbah in the beautiful Northern Rivers district in the far north of New South Wales.