Returning: Back Roads

ABC regional series Back Roads returns for its third season later this month.

Heather Ewart once again visits rural communities from Dunalley to the Pilbara, across nine episodes.

“They’re proud communities like my hometown, full of surprises, fight and spirit”, says Heather.

This series you’ll meet 34-year-old Hunter McLeod, a former Melbourne commercial radio DJ turned pilot, who lives and flies in one of this country’s most remote areas, South Australia’s Oodnadatta track.

You’ll meet best friends Doug Sheather and ‘Snags’ McKimmie, old ‘bushies’ from the foothills of the high country around Corryong in Victoria. Doug’s bachelor shack is basic to say the least – with a view to die for. These cattlemen are as authentic as the whips they hand-braid.

And there’s also Wayne Quach. He loves mangoes so much he left his life as a successful software developer in Arizona, in the USA, and moved to Pine Creek in the Northern Territory to become a mango farmer. The former Vietnamese refugee now runs 12 mango farms, and has recruited his son Robert from the US to help out.

Back Roads highlights the significance of place and how it inspires lives and passions writ large.

First stop is the Victorian high-country town of Corryong, before this nine-part series heads to the small Tasmanian town of Dunalley, which has re-invented itself after a bushfire almost wiped out the town. Then Back Roads traverses the Oodnadatta track in South Australia, on to Canowindra in NSW, Pine Creek in Northern Territory, a journey through West Australia’s Pilbara with female truck-drivers, Robe in South Australia, and to a place close to Heather’s heart, Violet Town, in Victoria.

Monday 27 November at 8.00pm on ABC.