melbourne to darwin road trip---stewart's highway
Discussion
Its a long drive...But if you dont mind isolation its also a fantastic one. From Melbourne i would take the great ocean road, then lake Gambia and on to Adelaide. turning north the first part of the Stewart's is a bit tedious in the traffic, but then we came the other way going from open road to slow traffic whereas you will have done the worst bit by then without the luxury of being out on your own. There aren't so many side attractions to stop at south of ayers rock (someone will be along shortly to contradict that) but you do have to spend the night in coober pedy and sleep in an underground hotel. Obviously go out to ayers rock and the ogles, but dont just drive back to the Stewart, take the Mereenie loop from kings canyon(i think its paved all the way now) some fantastic scenery and you can pop into Stanly chasm and Simpson's gap.
Traveling north from Alice, stop at the devils marbles, just off the side of the highway, stop at mataranka for the singing termite mound, and go and have a look/dip in the hot pools. Stop off in Katherine and do the Katherina gorge trip, but also go down to the park at the low level bridge.
North of Katerine there are some waterfalls off to the right which are part of kakadu, they're not terribly spectacular but supposed to be a nice swimming hole. Towards Darwin there is litchfield national park which is a collection of waterfall fed swimming holes, quite nice to see the waterfalls even if you dont fancy a dip (not to keen on non chlorinated Australian water, too many things waiting to eat a limb).
Alternative from Katherine is to go into kakadu which is well worth it if its dried out buy then.
I would thoroughly recommend you get a copy of Bill Brysons lost continent as he mentions some great out of the way placs you may just drive past without realising otherwise.
Not sure about using a camper, we stayed in motels and roadhouses, we did it in a 4x4 in 2001 which we rented from Britz. they do campers also. last time we did Darwin to Broome we rented a 4x4 from thrifty. Not sure if its still the case but there can be restrictions by the major rental co's on moving cars between NSW,VIC,SA and NT,WA, Britz were about the only co that would let us pick up in Perth and drop in Cairns when we did it and there was no one way fee.
Oh and take some CD's with you. Once you are 10km outside of town the radio will turn to static and not come back until 10KM outside the next town, often at the other end of the day, and even then your lucky to get more than a couple of stations.
Traveling north from Alice, stop at the devils marbles, just off the side of the highway, stop at mataranka for the singing termite mound, and go and have a look/dip in the hot pools. Stop off in Katherine and do the Katherina gorge trip, but also go down to the park at the low level bridge.
North of Katerine there are some waterfalls off to the right which are part of kakadu, they're not terribly spectacular but supposed to be a nice swimming hole. Towards Darwin there is litchfield national park which is a collection of waterfall fed swimming holes, quite nice to see the waterfalls even if you dont fancy a dip (not to keen on non chlorinated Australian water, too many things waiting to eat a limb).
Alternative from Katherine is to go into kakadu which is well worth it if its dried out buy then.
I would thoroughly recommend you get a copy of Bill Brysons lost continent as he mentions some great out of the way placs you may just drive past without realising otherwise.
Not sure about using a camper, we stayed in motels and roadhouses, we did it in a 4x4 in 2001 which we rented from Britz. they do campers also. last time we did Darwin to Broome we rented a 4x4 from thrifty. Not sure if its still the case but there can be restrictions by the major rental co's on moving cars between NSW,VIC,SA and NT,WA, Britz were about the only co that would let us pick up in Perth and drop in Cairns when we did it and there was no one way fee.
Oh and take some CD's with you. Once you are 10km outside of town the radio will turn to static and not come back until 10KM outside the next town, often at the other end of the day, and even then your lucky to get more than a couple of stations.
Oh and dont underestimate the safety aspect of such as drive. The Stuart is quite a busy road by outback standards but even so you need to be able to fend for yourselves for a bit. Make sure you have plenty of water on board. We carried 2L per day per person of bottled water (which is less than your supposed to) and drank it as we went but at the end of each day refilled the empty bottles with tap water so we always had several days worth of water. Pack a decent first aid kit, enough that you can strap up a good size wound as help is a long time away, better to have some bandages and pads an not need them than to not have them and have to go macgyver.
When you pick up the vehicle, check you have good spare tyres and a complete jack. We had a puncture on our broome trip and when we went to use the jack we couldn't find all the parts (ie the handle) Fortunately it went down overnight so the motel lent us a jack to change the tyre, It was then a faff to get a new jack (thrifty organised it with a local Toyota dealer) and get the tyre replaced. Ironically when we were clearing out the car in broome we found the jack handel under the back seat (two thrifty and one Toyota employee had also failed to find it btw) but had that happened during the day we would likely have been a little stuffed as we had been out on some remote dirt roads that day.
When you pick up the vehicle, check you have good spare tyres and a complete jack. We had a puncture on our broome trip and when we went to use the jack we couldn't find all the parts (ie the handle) Fortunately it went down overnight so the motel lent us a jack to change the tyre, It was then a faff to get a new jack (thrifty organised it with a local Toyota dealer) and get the tyre replaced. Ironically when we were clearing out the car in broome we found the jack handel under the back seat (two thrifty and one Toyota employee had also failed to find it btw) but had that happened during the day we would likely have been a little stuffed as we had been out on some remote dirt roads that day.
i did melbourne to the rock and back in a long weekend which is somewhere around the 5500km mark. melbourne to adelaide you can drive overnight if you have a few drivers - theres a fair gap past horsham where there is not much to see.
i would recomend not driving the bit from port-agusta after anytime approaching dusk. neally didnt make it back down to adelaid. i think we were averaging 40km/h for that last stretch as we were constantly dogging kangaroos. cliped about 10 tails but missed all the hard bits of the big reds.
Second the Water comment
also add some good windscreen cleaner to get the bugs off.
i would recomend not driving the bit from port-agusta after anytime approaching dusk. neally didnt make it back down to adelaid. i think we were averaging 40km/h for that last stretch as we were constantly dogging kangaroos. cliped about 10 tails but missed all the hard bits of the big reds.
Second the Water comment
also add some good windscreen cleaner to get the bugs off.
carspath said:
my wife and i are planning a road trip from melbourne to darwin
we have no experience of this sort of drive , and would appreciate any info at all re renting motorhomes , fuel costs , camp-sites , recommended companies
we anticipate travelling in march of 2012
did you do this at all yet?we have no experience of this sort of drive , and would appreciate any info at all re renting motorhomes , fuel costs , camp-sites , recommended companies
we anticipate travelling in march of 2012
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