6076.2 Kilometers of camping in Australia

That’s 3775.6 miles for those not quick with the conversion.  That is slightly further than Miami, Florida to Seattle, Washington (on 2 lane roads, no Interstates).  That is how far we drove our trusty van in Australia.  I know we still have another post for Australia (some awesome places in the final days) but we have had a fair amount of questions about the drive, the van and camping.

Our van, a Toyota Hitop, was our transportation, our kitchen, bedroom, and when raining our living room.

The drive was, in a word, long.  The quality of roads is not to U.S. standards and if you didn’t figure out from the title – Australia is big.  The Toyota was a 5 speed stick, so Missy was not able to drive.  We could drive approximately 400 Kilometers on 3/4 tank of gas.  We spent $729.08 in gas over the entire trip (I know, I may be a little anal on keeping logs).

As Missy said earlier we used an app called Wiki Camps to find different sites on our route.  We could camp for 48 hours with no power plug-in.  This used a battery for the fridge and lights and our van carried 35 liters of water.  We preferred trying to only use unpowered sites ever other day for fear of the 48 hours being a maximum.  The unpowered sites ranged from a park with public toilets and that is the only amenities offered to sites with access to hot showers, gas grills, and full camp kitchen.  The powered sites typically had access to hot showers (one made us pay 1 dollar for a 5 minute shower), camp kitchens and clean toilets.  On a few

occasions we had a powered site that had a private bathroom and shower for each site — I know, pretty fancy right?  In the south most camp sites were ghost towns as it was very cold, but as we traveled north the campsites were more and more crowded – until at the end we actually had a difficult time finding a site with vacancy.

During our time we were able to enjoy a few camp fires – (five fires, six matches – my dad should be proud), cook fantastic food (in the van, in the camp kitchens, and on the fire), memorize every song on our road trip play list, see some amazing scenery, see some unique animals, meet some great people, spend time in our 54th country/7th continent of this wonderful journey, and in all of that we never once got lost (This one I have to take Missy’s word on – I would  drive and she would always say she knows exactly where we are – – – I wonder…..)

Our 21 days of camping in Australia was wonderful, we saw so much more and experienced so much more than if we just chose to fly to a few spots.  Next time I think we will drive the other way around the country through Western Australia and the Northern Territories, this will be a little more challenging as we need a 4×4 and take a little more time.  Always leave something to come back for.