Trip to Australia

by Linda C
(Spring, Texas USA)

I will be traveling to Australia in June with my collage age daughter and a girfriend of hers. We would love to go to Ayers Rock and Alice Springs but several things have me a little cautious of the outback - long stretches of road, little gas, car trouble, etc.

My question is: is it reasonable for us to drive in a rental car from Sydney to Ayers Rock and Alice Springs then take the drive via Mt. Isa to Winton and back to the coast? From there we would continue up the coast with Cape Tribulation our last point. I look forward to hearing from you. Linda from Texas, USA

Response to: Trip to Australia

Dear Linda,
Before talking about vehicle trouble and gas stations I want to make sure that such a drive is really what you want to do.

Do you really want to spend most of your Australia visit in a car driving?

My guess is that you are underestimating the size of Australia. You are looking at a whole continent, not some tiny island. The trip you have in mind involves about 8000 kilometres (5000 miles) of driving. That is about 16 days of driving if you want to keep the driving to a reasonable limit per day.

The costs for car hire and gas would be astronomical, too.

You give no indication of how long you want to spend on that trip and what else you want to see.

If all you want to see is Sydney, Alice Springs/Ayers Rock and the highlights of the east coast, then it doesn't make sense to spend weeks just driving between those places.

Instead I would fly to Alice Springs and hire a vehicle there. You still need to drive several hundred kilometres from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock so you certainly get that experience of driving through the Outback.

I would then fly to the east coast and again hire a vehicle there.

Regarding your concerns about mechanical trouble and gas stations: there is no lack of service stations along our highways. There is also no lack of other vehicles. Mechanical trouble is always a nuisance, but it should not be a major issue if you are in a reliable and fairly new hire vehicle.

It is because of the overall distances involved that I think it does not make sense to drive all that way.