Hi there
Me & my hubby are taking a 6 month career break. 5 months of it to travel around Australia. We have a wedding in melbourne in october which will be the start of our journey. we are thinking of buying a camper van and making our own way around the whole coast of oz. we are not sure if this is too ambitious due to the distances involved. we were thinking of travelling Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, cairnes, Brisbaine, sidney and then back to melbourne. or should we fly to perth then darwin and then start our driving there???? Decisions decisions!!! any thoughts or advice would be welcomed.
Cheers

Try and read Tim Bowden's books, "Penelope Goes West" and "From BungleBungles to Broom" for some background on outback camping tours.

Most people try to avoid the tropical (northern) areas in the wet season, and October is about the start of it, so consider this in your planning. I think 5 months would be feasible, and most grey nomads travel clockwise, because of help from prevailing winds across the Nullarbor. But leaving Melbourne in October, you would run into the wet season once you head north from Perth. How about ending up in Melbourne, or a break in the middle, instead?

PS Don't forget beautiful Tasmania!

We took a 4-month trip 'round Australia with a small campervan and had a great time. As noted above, the timing is not good though - we started out in March from Melbourne, went up the coast to Port Douglas, then over to Darwin, then down the center to Adelaide, and return along the coast to Melbourne. You could do the full circle in 5 months, but we elected to go slow and never got to western Aus.

Buying a campervan is somewhat risky. If you are lucky, you can make your money back. We tried that in NZ, then tried to sell it after 6 months, and ended up losing as much money (or more) than it would have cost to hire the same vehicle. Worse, we wasted a total of over two weeks between buying and selling the campervan. We elected to hire a campervan in Oz, and got a good long-term deal on an older vehicle from NQ Australia. Also, look into buy-back schemes, where a dealer agrees to buy back the van at a fixed price. It won't be a good deal, but you have a back-up in case you can't sell the vehicle on the open market.

Thank you so much folks... some really good advice there.

Hi There
we have done some more planning and we definately want to go clockwise to adelaide then perth and on up to darwin, so we will be up towards darwin in november. how bad is the rainy season? is it feasable to drive up there at this time of year. Has anyone experienced it? Look forward to your feedback. x

Should be alright in November, bear in mind that Cyclone Tracy took out the city of Darwin on Christmas Eve back in the 70's. This was a Category 5, worse than the one which just hit Florida.

Include the great ocean rd, from Melbourne to Adelaide. Get to Mclaren vale and the Barossa if you like wine. It's a big drive to Perth long and boring. But beaches on the west Coast are beautiful. Don't worry about the weather in aus, it's mostly really easy to drive around.

Uh -- andy . . . this thread/trip is eleven years ago . . .