Putting Australia on the map
The McMillans, with their twin five-year-old sons Connor and Alexander, spent a year travelling through Tasmania and the Great Dividing Range of NSW, upgrading information for Brisbane-based mapping company Hema.
The first products of their extensive survey are the new south-east, central-east and north-east maps of NSW. New Tasmanian maps are next on the drawing board.
The original plan was for the McMillans to update the Great Dividing Range from south to north. “Our brief changed a bit as there was too much to cover,” Alistair says.
“Hema has now updated and re-surveyed about 80 per cent of Australia and our next big survey will be the range region from Coffs Harbour to the top.
“But consolidating the data we have collected on this trip will keep us busy for at least the next 12 months. No other private mapping company is doing the sort of work we are doing to upgrade maps.”
The biggest and most expensive mapping expedition Hema has done was in 1998 when seven teams were sent out to plot Australia’s desert tracks over an 18-month period.
The result was the Great Desert Tracks Atlas and Guide, which won International Map Trade Association awards in 2007 for best book-based product and best product.
Alistair says most of the updates they found this time were roads that are now sealed, although they also found roads that didn’t go anywhere and dead ends which now continue.
“In one place in Tasmania we came to a locked gate and we were only centimetres from the highway. We had to back-track about an hour to get through,” Michelle says.
They also had a few 4WD ‘moments’ such as getting stuck in the wet clay on the Kilpotra Track near Kempsey with a broken winch.
In the end, MaxTrax — a plastic piece of ‘portable road’ invented by Brisbane 4WD expert Brad McCarthy — helped them through.
Michelle says she grew to enjoy off-roading and her highlight was the Deva National Park in south-east NSW. “It was a bit steep and hairy, but it’s beautiful country,” she said.
“This trip was my first real 4WD experience, but I really enjoyed it.”
For the kids, the highlights were when their tent fell down and when they saw a snake while they were waiting for their parents to haul their 4WD out of yet another bog.
“People thought we would kill each other but we all came back alive,” Michelle says. “We were with each other all day every day with nowhere to escape but we came through.
“A lot of people were horrified that we would have two five-year-olds in the car but they have always travelled well. They played card games, had a DVD player in the back and they did a lot of bushwalking. About the worst thing was that Connor got car sick on the windy roads in Tasmania.”
Satellite navigation equipment used to plot roads and trails included the new Hema Navigator and a CSI differential GPS.
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Putting Australia on the map
