Is Yulara Farer?

My wife's birthday a month or so ago was the perfect excuse to buy her the thing she has needed for years - a GPS based navigator. We installed it in the 4WD because in the normal course of events that's the car she drives, and therefore my previously mentioned "dumb" GPS was without a home. But not for long. A little interior redesign and my beloved GPS with personally collected weigh points from all over Australia was up and running in my Commodore.

And a few days ago, in a sure sign I was thinking more about the outback than the city, I tuned it in to see how far it was to Yulara. It is a curious fact that Yulara, Kings Canyon and Alice Springs are all almost exactly the same distance from Melbourne - each between 1900 and 1950 kilometres. As you drive around the suburbs, the three of them do this little dance - and occasionally change orders in terms of how far away they are. Indeed, when you drive out to the south of Geelong, suddenly Alice Springs turns out to be slightly further away than Yulara. But for almost all the metropolitan area, it is indeed Yulara that is farer.

It is tantalising. You can be sitting in traffic along Warragul Road and the little unit on the dash can tell you that one of the greatest places in the Outback is a mere 1,939 kilometres away, slightly wester than north-west. At a stretch, I reckon I could get there in two days... not that I ever have. The best I have ever done is leaving Yulara at 9:30 in the morning and arriving home in Melbourne at 3:00pm two days later. Still, I reckon it could be done in two days... imagine that...

Most of the time, I snap out of it again pretty quickly and get on with things. Sometimes such a thought will linger for a while and start to take root. No question, the GPS has the ability to transport me when I am feeling a bit bogged down...