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Great Alpine Road, Victoria
Seen from space, a satellite picture of this area looks like a brain, all writhing with hilariously crazy-looking roads. We see you’ve lost control of your saliva glands, all over your keyboard.
See our gallery, Victoria's Best Driving Roads here.
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Horrifying truck crash video
Woah: Watch this crazy truck driver nearly wipe out two cars in this horrifying crash somewhere in eastern Europe
Horrifying truck crash video -
THE ROAD: Great Alpine Road, Victoria
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/5vmdt
Ah, the Great Alpine Road – the main artery of Victoria and New South Wales’ alpine driving nirvana. Go to the above Google Maps link and look around that area. Oh. My. God. Some of those roads want you to turn your computer off, grab car keys, and get driving. Who cares if it takes all night. Future You can deal with such things.
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And now you can drive one around China, pretending you're giving Kate Middleton a lift to Bucko Palace!
UPDATE 21/05/12: Originally, this was where our gallery ended. But hidden in the secret archives of TopGear.com (slash, a folder sitting in My Documents we had forgotten about), we found more Chinese rip-offs!
Click on, dear TopGearers...
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THE ROAD: Donna Buang, Victoria
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/wnfkd
It sounds like something that would give you diarrhoea on a trip to Bangkok, but it’s actually a road in Victoria that will make your eyes roll back into your head as you become lost in throes of rapture (pull over first).
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Lasseter Highway, Northern Territory
Australia is flatter than that possum that’s been having a long sleep on your local main road. Mountains can be very pretty, but it can also be beautiful to stand in the middle of an ocean of land. This is the feeling you’ll get from driving the Lasseter, the road that runs past Uluru.
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THE ROAD: Lasseter Highway, Northern Territory
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/4yrae
Northern Territory’s Lasseter Highway is Australia’s equivalent of America’s famous Route 66 – except, we decided to put ours in the part of the country populated by emus and not much else. If you’re willing to make the trip, the Lasseter is one road that will suck the air out of your lungs with its stunning 360-degree views of uninterrupted horizon. Oh, and a spectacular view of a certain, gigantic outback rock...
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Australia was never meant to have nice roads. By being the size of 58 Englands, and with about 17 people living here, there simply aren't enough people paying tax to afford roads that aren't made out of mud and bits of hair.
Well, we used to think that. But actually, we're wrong.
We have 810,000km of roads in Australia and while most of them are rubbish, there are many driving oases awaiting discovery if you look hard enough (or if you have Google Maps and no life). Which is what we did.
But we didn't want to stop there. Like Delta Goodrem and your TV's mute button, some things were meant to go together. So for each road, we've picked the car we think would suit it best, kind of like a waiter recommending a wine to go with your meal (except that you should never eat food that we've given you).
So sit back, and enjoy. And naturally, you might think we're wrong or missed a few. So tell us which road we've missed in our discussion blog. We might even go and drive it ourselves.
Or you could just see the ones we picked. Click ‘next'.
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THE ROAD: Lake Mountain, Victoria
As you ascend the mountain and get higher in altitude, like a scene from the Lion King, the road opens up to overlook a spectacular valley of Aussie alpine bush. The road is almost one of Australia’s worst driving roads because there’s so much to distract you from the road itself.
You can read more about Lake Mountain here.
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THE ROAD: Thunderbolts Way, NSW
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/t6n5m
Linking Walcha to Gloucester in the mid-north bosom of New South Wales is Thunderbolts Way, a worm-like stretch of bitumen threading through a latticework of glorious state forests and national parks. If you live in the city, you’ve probably got two or three catalytic converters’ worth of gunk in your left lung alone. You should use the Thunderbolts Way’s 143km of crispy-fresh air to cleanse them.
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THE ROAD: Caves Road, Western Australia
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/9n67g
Stringing its way through WA’s quaint Margaret River region, Caves Road is a terrific excuse for us East Coasters to spend the six light years making the trek to visit our mates in Perth.
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THE ROAD: Illawarra region, NSW
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/purwu
Tucked in the valleys south of Sydney, you’ll find the driving playground that is the Illawarra region. With roads like Moss Vale Road, Macquarie Pass and Kangaroo Valley, you’ll have earned the right to gorge yourself on pies from the famous Robertson’s Pie Shop, which is buried at the epicentre of said driving sanctuary.
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THE ROAD: Great Ocean Road, Victoria
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/sepnk
Built by returned World War One veterans at the start of last century, the Great Ocean Road grips spectacularly to the south Victorian coast and peers over the tumultuous cobalt waters of Bass Strait. The road is so good that it is heritage listed.
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THE ROAD: Mt Hotham, Victoria
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/vjd2g
Ok, so it’s pretty much the same as the Great Alpine Road, but if you examine the above map, you’ll see why we’ve picked Mount Hotham – it’s not so much the road that runs through the Victorian ski resort, but more about the slightly arousing maze of bend-gasmic roads that entangle the hills around the Mount Hotham resort.
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THE ROAD: Queenstown, Tasmania
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/enwwf
And one of those roads is in Queenstown, where Targa Tasmania visits each year. Thanks to silly humans and our enthusiasm for digging shiny rocks out of the ground, Queenstown’s surrounding mountains have been shaved naked of all vegetation. It’s like driving on the moon, just with less aliens, unless you include some of the locals (friendly aliens, of course).
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THE ROAD: (All of) Tasmania
According to legend, there lies a mysterious island off the south coast of Australia, called ‘Tasmania’. Blanketed in clouds and roamed by strange human-like creatures, probably very similar to those in Avatar, it is a legendary nirvana for those who enjoy driving. The Tasmanian people do not know how to build a boring road.
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THE ROAD: Black Spur Road, Victoria
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/ufr8n
If you drive the Black Spur, you will fall under one of two opposite spells. It does this weird thing where, for motorcyclists at least, it turns normal men into adrenaline-engorged idiots, trying their hardest to fall off. But for others, you might be driving the new Aventador, and you’ll putter around at 40km/h with your chin superglued to the top of the steering wheel, gawking at the incredible scenery. You’ll never know which way you’ll go until you visit. Which you must do, and soon.
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THE ROAD: Lake Mountain, Victoria
WHERE IS IT? http://g.co/maps/zjjq7
We’d never heard of it either, and then we went there, and we were so spellbound that our legs turned al dente. The road leading up to Victoria’s Lake Mountain ski resort is just incredible – 11km of stunningly good-quality bitumen, surrounded by a ghostly thorn field of ivory-coloured snow gums, bereft of any foliage, killed in the horrible Black Saturday fires of 2009.
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