Tell us “Where to go”!

So Australia is big. Real big. It’s almost 4000 km wide, and just under that from the northernmost point to the Southernmost point in Tasmania. With a population that is largely huddled around our coastlines, this means that there are large expanses to explore where you might not see people for extended periods. You certainly shouldn’t expect to have phone reception!

One of the joys of travelling in a motorhome is the sense of freedom it enables. Love a place? Fantastic, hang out there for a week. Hate a place? Pull in the awning, put away the chairs, and floor it before the mental scars become permanent.

How to balance this freedom with not always being able to research where to go next, either online or by talking with fellow travellers? We’ve always been a little cavalier with our approach to holidays, but this one may warrant a little planning…

We’ve been on a trip to Europe where our Eurail passes followed us around the continent We had ordered them only a couple of days before we left, and they were then express delivered incorrectly, to a stoner in apartments down the road from where we were staying in London. The courier company was unable to retrieve the tickets from him. Our marvellous and heavily pregnant sister-in-law apparently saved us when she went around and stuck around until he saw through the fog and found the tickets. Everything appeared fine… until we realised that the passes we were holding had been cancelled due to the courier company not being able to retrieve them. This really hit home when having matching ticketed seats on a train from Paris to Switzerland…

And when we went around New Zealand in a motorhome, we booked our tickets and motorhome a week and half out, and figured the entirely relaxed approach would be perfect. We could simply go where the spirits took us. For those of you who don’t know us, one of us has a background in compliance and regulation. Goals and reality don’t always align. Wanting to see as much as possible in a limited timeframe meant an hour every night planning what opportunities the next day would bring, rather than simply relaxing and enjoying the journey.

So what will we plan, and what to leave to be part of the adventure?

The first part we’re locking in is the direction we’ll take. When I was younger, I remember hearing on Sunday Mornings with Macca on ABC Radio, along with Percy Grainger’s bird calls, a conversation about driving around Australia anticlockwise, to save on petrol as you will drive less kilometres. This completely blew my 10 year old mind and made amazing sense. I imagined the endless traffic jams as everyone realised the absolute truth of this revelation, and as every caravan in Australia subsequently set off, clockwise, on a trip around Australia. Later, learning about Pi and the circumference of a circle this still seemed to make sense – driving on the left hand side of the road, you would be driving around a slightly smaller radius. Choice made.

In reality? I’m pretty sure the number of kilometres saved wouldn’t be that significant. And it turns out there are other factors. Given Australia has two different climates – the southern half has four seasons, and the top half has a wet and dry season, it makes sense to align with those. Particularly as we’ll be driving a four-and-a-half ton truck and I’m not sure the two of us are quite man enough to push it out of a bog in crocodile infested flood waters. Maybe we are. But we’re not all that keen to discover if this is true.

The dry season up North runs from May to October, and the wet season November to April. We’ll be leaving in February. We’ll head West, and spend three months exploring Victoria, South Australia, and the Southern part of Western Australia. We can then spend June, July, and August in the North, escaping the Winter, and enjoying the Dry.

And where will we visit? Well, we haven’t gone to the extreme of developing a blow by blow itinerary. But we do want some idea of how we’ll be spending six months, other than ‘not here’, and planning a holiday stretches out the joy of the experience for much longer than the trip itself.

So, on our wall, we have a map of Australia. We have little stars, different colours for each state. And every time we think of somewhere, or someone mentions a locale in conversation, and it piques our interest? Another little coloured star goes on the very big map. And when we head off, along will come the map.

Given there’s so much to see in Australia, we are a little worried that by the time we are ready to go the map will be a giant, multi-coloured patchwork quilt made up of overlapping stars. The map itself wouldn’t be visible. If this happens, and we repeat the unplanned nature of our previous trips? We will still have had a joyful 12 months leading up to the trip, discussing, researching, and appreciating the marvels of Australia.

Oh, and for those of you keeping track at home, yes, it means we’ll be travelling clockwise. My inner 10-year-old is crying a little inside. But also really glad we’ll be travelling in the opposite direction to all those crazy traffic jams.