Hi Everyone,
It depends on if you are stopping anywhere along the way
Just to be clear, you can't drive up the West coast from . First you need to cross the entire mass of Australia heading West. Once you hit the coast, then you can shoot north along the coast. Then you need to head east again to Darwin, which is roughly half way. After that, a little south, and across another desert to the East coast.
According to who did it by pushbike, it was around 20 000 kilometres (full disclosure, my dad actually did the trip on a pushbike too back in the 70's). So if you do nothing but drive 1000 km per day, it would take you roughly 20 days, assuming your car holds out. This is certainly not recommended though!!! I'd think you'd want to use at least 4 months doing this trip. At least. Personally I wouldn't consider it if I didn't have at least 8 months. That way you actually get to enjoy it along the way
I suggest you do your research on the weather, and in general australia is very vast and lots of nothing in some sections other then road and shrub, in between for instance Melbourne to the west coast in the middle is Adelaide, then comes Perth keeping in mind everything in between is well worth seeing and is time consuming. The east coast is pretty much more denser in population then the western side and the northern top. The northern top end is long stretches of road with very little in between traveling north def does need to be taken with care.
Australia isn't just a hot, dusty continent all year round.
The first thing to remember is that if you're coming from the Northern Hemisphere, the seasons are reversed. This means:
If it's summer in the northern hemisphere, it's winter in Australia
If it's autumn/fall in the northern hemisphere, it's spring in Australia
If it's winter in the northern hemisphere, it's summer in Australia
If it's spring in the northern hemisphere, it's autumn in Australia
The hottest months in Australia are therefore December, January and February. In these months, you might like to head south to escape the heat. The coldest months are June, July and August - a perfect time to explore up north. The wet season(also known as cyclone season as well) runs in the north of the country from November to April, but the southern capitals usually receive their heaviest rainfalls from June to August.
Hope this helps a little
Regards,
Monique
Hi, thanks for the replies. I've been to Australia before with a friend of mine we managed to drive from Melbourne to sydney up through the simpson desert up to the devils marbles then across to Cairns and back down to Brisbane. That took us 5weeks and we managed to stop at a lot of places and do diving courses on the way.
We were hoping to do the coast for a charity event in 2011 so starting to plan it now. We weren't looking at stopping and spending weeks at each place, the only place I wouldn't mind spending one or 2 days at is Ningaloo Reef for some diving other than that it would be a straight through drive, We realise we would have alot of nothingness to drive through but that we don't mind so much.
Would you say it oculd be done in a month? We don't want to spend ages doing it because there is no real challenge there then.
Cheers
Ok, we've gone through it a little bit and heres what we have roughly come up with:
Melbourne - Sydney - 3 days
Sydney - Brisbane - 2 days
Brisbane - Cairns - 3 days
Cairns - Darwin - 6 days
Darwin - Broome - 4 days
Broome - Karratha - 2 days
Karratha - Geraldton - 1 day
Geraldton - Perth - 3 days
Perth - Melbourne - 9
Total of 33days
We won't be stopping to sight see maybe have the odd day here and there as rest days but nothing for a long period of time, does that seem about right to anyone?
I really don't think Geraldton to Perth needs 3 days! In my opinion, there is pretty much nothing to see on the way and it's only a 420km drive, easily done in a day normally. And you've allocated the same amount of days to the Brisbane to Cairns drive, and that is a 1700km drive, so maybe you could add a couple of extra days on to that?
There is a really helpful web site at .. http://www.whereis.com/
You can put in one place and it wil give you a map of it... and you can also put in a second place .. say Sydney and Brisbane ... and it will give you a route map, driving directions, distances in kilometeres, and travel time.
Spend a few minutes playing with the site and i think you will find it helpful.
Above all, have fun.
Lex
Hi, thanks for the replies - i've changed Geraldton to Perth to 1 day and added a couple more days onto Brisbane to Cairns.
Thanks for that whereis website ill have a good play around with that over the next few days see if i can really work out the exact time it might take to do this.
Matt
Melbourne to Sydney is easily done in a day - it's about a 12 hour drive along the Hume Hwy. If you're strict about hugging the coast, then maybe allow two days because it's a bit longer along the Princess Highway. Three seems excessive though considering the other vast distances you are trying to cover.
Allow about a day for every 500klms. On average. You can do SYD-MLB in a day and that 800klms, but its a good straight freeway most of the way.
So that's about 50-days.
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