When I first started independent road trips in the late ‘70s, the country was a different place. Luxuries like power steering, air-conditioning and satellite navigation were things of the future and the major highways - like the Hume - passed through little towns and villages all along the way.  Nowadays, the great bitumen ribbon is only interrupted by cookie-cutter roadhouses and big-name service centres, feeding traffic past once-thriving communities that relied on the volume of passing trade for economic survival. Using existing historical research and maps provided by NSW Transport , I propose a magazine feature (or features) retracing as much of the original route as is still accessible. Even before the Hume Highway, a southern route to Melbourne wound its way through the countryside, joining the burgeoning agricultural settlements that were springing up all across the fledgeling colony. The project would involve creating a historical, self-guided journey along the route...