marijosius

Hi everybody,

perhaps its just one similar to many others request, but I couldn't find all answer yet:
I intend visiting Australia and have planned the route primarily as this:

Sydney - Melbourne - Adelaide - Uluru, that back the same way, just passing Melbourne.

At first I intended to make a loop, taking trip from Alice to Brisbane, however it turns out to be road tough even for 4WD and I decided not to risk it (maybe the road is paved already????).

I intend my visit to last app 20 days and to do all travelling by self drive in rented car.

Could you please comment on this route, is it realistic, maybe there are some alternative loop I could do with regular rental car?

Thanx

Marius

Jacko1

I do not know the answer but from my experiances in Australia this sounds very ambitious, you would need a very well equipped 4WD and a lot of experiance fro the trip to Uluru.
A wise alternative may be to try and organise a guided/convoy tour.

Paul J

Grayling

It's Ok if you want to spend all your trip in the car

You are talking about vast distances on pretty ordinary roads.

The road from Adelaide to Uluru should not be taken too lightly.
Just fly to the various cities using Virgin Blue or the like:

www.virginblue.com.au

good luck

G

Granger

I'm glad you changed your mind about driving to Ulura, hell of a drive, but I would say the worst road ever had to be travelling from Adelaide to Perth. My god nothing but bush, bush and more bush, you could be left for dead. Your other journey sounds realistic enough, but we got really tired in between and found we needed that bit longer than 20 days. Good luck!!!

NickyC

There's nothing wrong with that route. Plenty of traffic on it (even the Adelaide/Uluru leg) and as long as you stay on the road you'd be fine. It's not the sort of road where only one car a day passes. There are heaps of cars, coaches and trucks that use it - you definitely don't need a 4WD or a convoy! Would probably take about 7 days in each direction so you wouldn't have much time to stop anywhere, which is your main problem really.

Ideally you should share the driving with someone. Why don't you look at the Lonely Planet forum at http://thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/ca...s.cfm?catid=10 where there are heaps of people there planning trips just like yours.

Dmartyos

Hi Marius

Heres my 5 cent worth. I travelled Sydney - Melbourne by coach - 10 hours not much fun, supposed to be nicer to travel down the coast & then inland to Victoria. Could be good in a rental car. The journey from Melbourne - Adelaide was a nice scenic route which incompased the Great Ocean road. (I did it through a tour group & stayed near the grampians & trecked for a couple of days). Stopped off in places like Torquay & Lorne & the 12 apostles.

From Adelaide we got the Ghan from there to Alice Springs, a great journey, chilled out watched the landscape & relaxed for 24 hours. Once in Alice Springs you can either hire a 4X4 or go with a tour to Uluru. Tour is cool cause you get to find out about the area/history & have the craic with people around the area. We camped out there for a few days & did some trecking, excellent but hot & millions of flies!

My idea (if I had loads more time) would be get the Ghan onto Darwin now, spend a few days there, head into Kakadu park & do some camping. Then head from there to Cairns- well travelled route. Do some activities on great barrier reef & make my way down the Brisbane (stopping off for few days at Airlee Beach & head out to the Whitsunday Islands). Well thats my idea of fun.

Bascially doing it all in a rental car will miss the point in my view, the ability to meet other travellers, will be knackered from travellin & watching the road. I would break it up into 4x4, coach & train to enjoy it best.

Though if you decide to travel out back in a rental make sure it has bars at the front for Kangeroos, dont drive at night & get a navigation kit or at least inform the local police as we met a few who had broken down in the bush & didnt have any help.

Cheers Marty

marijosius

Do you mean there is nothing wrong with the way Adelaide - Uluru, or Uluru - Brisbane. Because its the latter that I heard about which is for 4WD only, it includes app 700 km of PLENTY and DONOHUE highways which are not sealed. However this information is about 4 years old and I hoped maybe there are some changes?

Also, do you believe Uluru is worth 3500 km drive, because I have started to hesitate, its actualy half of the trip I have planned in Australia?

Thanx for help
Marius

Dmartyos

Marius

I have realised your time limit for the trip.
Is 20 the maximum you can spend over there?

I will set out the time it took us for the travel.

Spend a few days in Sydney & surroundings (Blue mts, Hunter Valley etc)
Sydney - Melbourne = coach 10 hours, by car 6. $50.
Spend a few days in Melbourne & city (St Kildas, city etc)
Melbourne - Adelaide = 3 day trip through Great Ocean road. Stopped in Grampians area. $150
Adelaide - 1/2 days to have a look around here.
Adelaide - Alice Springs = 24 hours train journey - probably quicker by car but a hell of a journey in harsh climate. $99.
Alice Springs - Uluru = 5 hours coach
3 days camping trip to Kings Canyon/surrounding area. $350

Possiblities from there:-One way flight from Alice Springs to Brisbane/Sydney.
Or travel on to Darwin if you can get more time & journey onto the east coast.

The road from Uluru/Alice Springs - Brisbane is not a well travelled one, Id be suprised if it was fully functional no one seems to journey that way. Probably still has no tarmac.

Personally I wouldnt like to go back on the same journey, you will spend a week going back through the same places & rushing to get back. Enjoy the time over there seeing the sights, spend a few days there & relaxing.

To be honest the distances are huge, like you wouldnt believe, actually took 1 month to travel from Cairns - Sydney so you can see how it can be stretched out going to see different places/different activties.

ps= Uluru is amazing, something which you wont forget, however driving all that way you probably will be a zombie by the time you get there.

If you need any help let us know

CPW

There is nothing wrong as such with the roads you talk about (Sydney–Melbourne–Adelaide–Ul uru), but the distances are very big (e.g. Sydney to Melbourne alone is 500–600 miles) and most of the roads are just one lane each way (the exception being Sydney–Melbourne if you travel by the main Hume Highway). To do this sort of trip, you would have to be very keen on driving – it would be, in essence, a driving holiday. It would be quite a task in 20 days, especially if there is no other driver to share the load with.

The Uluru–Brisbane roads are likely to be much worse, and lonelier, and, moreover, there's no obvious route as such. However, I've never done that trip myself so I do not speak from experience.

The most interesting leg of your proposed journey in terms of natural beauty would be Melbourne–Adelaide via The Ocean Road: wonderful coastal scenery. Every viewpoint is worth stopping at - believe me, even though some of them are only a few hundred yards apart. You might also want to do the trip to Uluru from Adelaide to experience something of the vastness of the featureless centre (although it is not as featureless as the road across the Nullabor Plain to Perth). You could also consider getting the train for this bit of the trip.

Another thing to consider is the time of year – it will be really very hot travelling from Adelaide to Ayres Rock in the summer: probably not a problem if you stick to the main roads but it could become a problem if you venture 'off the beaten track' and something goes awry with the car. If you are going to do that, summer or winter, you really need to seek and heed local advice about the current state of the roads and whether you should inform anyone (and, if so, whom) about your daily itinerary and your expected arrival times or days. The local police station at your point of departure from the beaten track should be able to help here.

If you do decide to do a round driving trip, then you don't need to pass through Melbourne again to get back to Sydney – you can cross from South Australia into NSW near Broken Hill and travel across inland NSW. This would take you through some semi-desert regions (for many miles) before you come to the pastoral lands north-west of Dubbo, then up into the Central Tablelands through the regional centres of Orange and Bathurst, and then over the Blue Mountains and down into Sydney.

Beegee

Hi

I would have thought it would be no bother except the roads are long and you need to have the time. When I backpacked around Oz I bought a $700 ford van and drove from Darwin down to Alice and around uluru, kings canon etc. Then drove back to darwin got pulled by the old bill and had to get some repairs done mostly paid for in beer ( God I love darwin!) then we drove all the way down the west coast and even took in the really bad gibb river road and other unsealed roads ( imagine colin mc crae in a van ). Only van prob I had was once running out of petrol and that was my own bloody fault. So go forit it if you have the time.

Siren & Brian

Its a bloody rock. Why bother.

Deadmeat

More tourist information available in the foyer

Seriously though, it does look a bloody long way from anywhere, at least the Egyptians had the sense to build the pyramids next to a KFC