The Hume Highway is Australia’s great inland artery, pumping more than 30,000 vehicles a day between Sydney and Melbourne.
But the long hours demand more than fuel and fast food. Rest stops are the remedy for white line fever, but not all were created equal. Some are soulful sanctuaries; others can be soul-sucking pit-stops of despair.
To help make your next road trip as painless as possible, here is our definitive ranking of the Hume’s top 10 rest stops, plus the ones you’re better off bypassing.
10: French VC Rest Area
NSW has a collection of rest areas along the Hume named after Victoria Cross recipients, part of “Remembrance Driveway,” established in 1954 to commemorate those who served in the Australian Defence Forces. Most are sterile clones: clean, clinical and charmless, with perfunctory picnic tables and fussy landscaping. French VC Rest Area is the conscientious objector to conformity, a renegade hideaway tucked discreetly off the highway, with a secluded, grassy bank perfect for reading, napping or staging a quiet insurrection. A strange shelter, possibly the work of local stoners, bears a stencilled warning: “Beware of snakes.” One for the rebels.
Read the full story here
