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Should roads be sealed?

I’m on the road from Broome to Cape Leveque.

I’ve always liked this picture, and not just because it was taken 17 years ago. There is an unspoilt beauty to a red unsealed road. The worse the road, the more we could have it to ourselves. Two weeks earlier, I was on the Gibb River Road, which a two-wheel drive vehicle really couldn’t do. It was a group of us in a bus that seemed to be held together with glue and string, in a peaceful calm that the sealed highway we went back on didn’t provide.

Then again, if the bus above had fallen apart, I may not have felt so sentimental, particularly if we’d been near salt water crocodiles. It wasn’t fun trying to read The Da Vinci Code on the bumpy track to the Mitchell Falls, though even less fun when I realised that after all those bumps, the Holy Grail at the end was – I’m still not sure – a woman? in our hearts? a symbol?

I also remember crossing the Nullarbor as a six-year-old and not at all liking the gravel part in South Australia.

To seal or not to seal?

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Michael from Perth

A unique view of the strange and spectacular world through the eyes of Michael from Perth