There’s not a spare parking spot to be had in the NSW central west town of Orange. Patrons spill from cafes onto pavements and queues trail in orderly ribbons from the gelato shop’s doorway. There’s no room at any inn, and restaurants are bursting at their (COVID-compliant) seams; forget about scoring a table if you haven’t booked ahead of time. Travel is back, and regional Australia is the big winner.
Orange was already gaining popularity with its elegant wineries and funky dining scene, but the post-lockdown breakout has brought a tsunami of visitors to its clipped, quaint streets and the winelands, olive groves and fig orchards radiating beyond its centre. A local purveyor recalls moving here from Sydney a decade ago, before Orange became trendy.
‘Now the whole of Sydney seems to be here,’ he says with a hint of irritation, and altogether cognisant of the fact that I and several of my party are visiting from that very city.
One can fully understand his frustration. Domestic destinations have been largely overlooked by Australians with the means to travel further afield; before our globetrotting lifestyles were rudely circumscribed earlier this year, we would routinely jet off to foreign shores on our annual holidays. Despite subdued economic conditions, low wage growth and a devalued Australian dollar, around 11 million Australians were expected to travel overseas between 2019 and 2020, and over 12 million the following financial year.
COVID put paid to all that, and when the shutters inched gradually open, itchy-footed hordes champed at them like crowds at the Boxing Day sales; only instead of surging inside they were desperate to be released into the great outdoors. All that pent-up wanderlust and lockdown-inspired cabin fever must be assuaged somewhere, and regional Australia has been the providential beneficiary.
And so it should be. Australia is a world unto itself, an entire continent endowed with topographical, social and cultural riches that extend far beyond the Great Barrier Reef and Uluru and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I’ve watched somewhat bemusedly as colleagues in the travel industry have discovered with delight and surprise cities like Broken Hill and Bathurst and Coonabarabran. And yet they’ve always been here, within striking distance, but have been most often bypassed in favour of more glamorous places like Tuscany and Vail and the French Riviera.
'We couldn’t have known, when Tourism Australia launched its ‘Holiday Here This Year’ campaign from the ashes of the New Year