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Article: Once around Australia, that lucky land of leisure
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- April 12, 1987
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright (null) Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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SYDNEY Last September, the final 250 miles were completed on
Australia's Highway 1, which laps the entire continent. So it's now
possible to drive all 7,664 miles of the world's longest highway.
Some 80 percent of Australia's 16 million people live within 50
miles of the ocean, and all major cities - save Canberra, the federal
capital - are coastal cities on Highway 1. So let's ignore the
advice of that grumpy geographer, R. T. Maurice, who wrote, "One who
would travel this country for pleasure would go to hell for a
pastime," and be off.
We begin at Sydney where the country itself began 199 years ago.
Australia was settled in a manner of somebody hiding something
unpleasant in an ...