Back Roads: June 8

Heather Ewart is back on Back Roads tonight for Season 6.

First stop is the Nullarbor Plain. Heather travels across the mighty Nullarbor and discovers why people are drawn to this remote landscape – and why they stay.

Travelling from Penong in South Australia to the border of Western Australia, Heather finds windmills, beautiful minerals and pink lakes. She meets a truck driver with three decades on the Stuart Highway and a cyclist who’s been on it for weeks!

Where the road hits the coast, Heather visits the towns created when access was only by sea, stopping to marvel at the migrating whales in the beautiful Fowlers Bay. But it’s far from the barren wasteland the name Nullarbor, or the land of no trees, suggests.

There’s medicine to be made from desert plants, which is “better than tablets” according to Anangu elder Mima Smart, and there’s natural wonder with the world’s longest run of uninterrupted cliffs, best viewed from the air after taking off from the iconic Nullarbor Roadhouse.

It’s a place that offers not only a unique way of life but also a deep connection to the land, from both those born on country to people from the other side of the world.

So, join Heather as she chases the endless horizon on the road from Penong westwards, discovering big skies, big seas, big animals, big machines and big characters.

Executive Producer, Brigid Donovan. Story Producer, Damian Estall.

8pm Monday on ABC.