Our time in Western Australia is nearing the end. We have places to be and things to do. There is so much of Australia we have not yet seen, we're going to go see some of it.
So, we are hitting the road on our biggest adventure yet. After our drive west sleeping in our tent, we've decided that we are ready to jump in with both feet for the full(er) Aussie experience.
Western Australia is connected to South Australia by one sealed road. This takes you through the Nullarbor in the south. There is a sealed road that connects Broome, WA to Katherine and Darwin, NT in the north. We have decided to take a third way through the center of the country and go through Laverton and Warburton enroute to Uluru and Alice Springs, NT. In fact, we've planned a grand tour.
Instead of heading south along the coast, we driving through the center of the country directly to Yulara (the town closest to Uluru). We'll then turn left and head to Alice Springs and Darwin. We then return south through Alice springs to Coober Pedy. Here, we will take a day trip to William Creek. Then we are on the home stretch through Port Augusta, Adelaide, Victor Harbor, Mount Gambier, and Melbourne. All designed to get us from Pearsall to the ferry in Melbourne in time to return to Tasmania.
As you see, Google Maps estimates a total time for this trip of 126 hours. Even though we'll not be on the road every day, this averages about 4 hours a day on the road for the 30 days we are traveling. We'll be busy and I'll be taking lots of photos. But the lack of reliable networks means that when the blog entries queued are posted, there will be a gap of week or so before I can begin to post again. Be patient.
When was the last time you considered a 30 day road trip? Us neither. The distances in Australia are large. Consider this comparison of the US and Australia.
Our planned trip takes us on roughly the trip from Los Angeles to north-central Iowa, then north well into Manitoba (about as far north as Churchill), back south to Mississippi and finally to central Florida. Then we board a ferry to skip over most of southern Florida and then drive south to Havana.
Of course, this size comparison glosses over the locations of the US and Australia relative to the equator. The Tropic of Capricorn passes just north of Alice Springs. The Tropic of Cancer, the northern hemisphere counterpart, passes about 34 km north of Havana, Cuba. Thus, to make the above comparison, the two maps have been shifted quite a ways. this makes much of the trip in places where it is going to be hot and, this time of year, rainy.
The part of Australia we are venturing into is a mostly empty place. The map below shows in yellow the portion of the country that contains 2% of the total population of the country. Notice the there is a tiny speck of white at Alice Springs and larger one for Darwin. Otherwise, NT is pretty darned empty.
We, of course, have hotels booked in the larger places (Darwin, Alice Springs, Melbourne), but the rest is under the stars in our little tent. We have tours booked to see the major attractions (Kakadu, Litchfield, West McDonald Ranges, and Eyre Lake) plus loads of other things we'll just do (such as seeing sunrise/sunset over Uluru).
We are pumped and ready to go. As long as it doesn't rain.
You see the section of the road from Laverton to Yulara is unsealed and can become unpassable (certainly by us) if it rains too much. And November is the beginning of the rainy seasons in the middle of the country. We hope to slip through before the wet sets in and get back on the sealed roads safely. If the Great Central road is impassable, we'll re-route through the Nullarbor and complete the rest of the trip as advertised. So far, all is dry and good.
Fingers crossed. We will post to Instagram as possible to give a flavor of the trip. Look there for updates.
The next adventure awaits. New horizons beckon.
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