All through the pandemic, I dreamed of just taking off and travelling Jack Kerouac-style on the road, randomly stopping where I felt like stopping, starting when I felt like starting, making easy friendships at truck stop cafes – sharing a smoke (I didn’t smoke but maybe I could share a packet of chips …), seeing the landscape roll by, grifting and drifting as far north as I could go, thinking big thoughts as I stared out the window and saw the flames of the canefields burning under a warm Queensland sky.
As I dreamed these dreams as a non-smoking learner driver with a job, my fantasy road trip had to, by necessity, be taken by public transport in a compressed space of time – ideally two weeks and with wifi, so I could work.
