What's the best direction to travel around Australia? Clockwise or anticlockwise?

What’s the best direction to drive around Australia? Clockwise or Anticlockwise?

Once you’ve made the decision to go, it’s time to get down to some of the more practical aspects of the journey, and probably the first big one you’ll want to consider is which way to turn when you drive out the driveway – will you travel clockwise or anti clockwise around Australia.

You may actually not be planning to travel around the whole country but even so the decision still applies.

Many argue that anticlockwise is best because you will mostly have the wind behind you and if you’re towing a caravan then wind resistance is going to be a big factor in fuel economy.

I have to say that we travelled clockwise and we didn’t have any more headwinds than tail winds so from my experience I’m yet to be convinced of this theory. Please feel free to share you’re own experience in the comments below as I’m interested in finding out if there really is a difference one way or another.

Other factors which are probably more important are when you leave and where you start from.

In order to maximise the weather you want to spend the middle 6 months of the year (April to September) travelling across the north of Australia between Broome and Cairns or visa versa. This is the time of year in the north they call the ‘Dry Season’ when temperatures are milder, generally in the high twenties to mid thirties, the humidity is much lower and rain falls very occasionally so the roads are generally all open. It’s the best time to be there if you’re looking for the milder climate and almost guaranteed access on any roads. It also coincides with winter in the southern half of the country which you are possibly trying to escape from. On our Big Lap we saw no rain at all from about halfway up the west coast until we were almost at the tip of Cape York 7 or 8 months later.

The dry season is also a good time to be in and around the Red Centre (Alice Springs, Uluru etc.) with the daytime temperatures in the high teens to high 20’s and the nights often approach zero degrees. If the extreme night time cold is not to your liking then Spring (Sept-Nov) and Autumn (March-May) are the best times to be in the centre where you’ll be nicely between the extreme heat of summer and the freezing nights of winter.

The other 6 months of the year between October and March is the ‘Wet Season’ in the north which is also called the ‘Green Season’. The weather is much hotter and more humid and thunder storms are generally a daily occurrence. Rivers flood and roads are closed so getting around can be a challenge as well. All of the sealed highways will likely remain open but detouring off to any of the attractions will become a less predictable.

This is a good time to be in the southern half of the country enjoying summer.

But . . . having said that, if you’re up for it, try and get up north in the Wet at some stage because it really is an amazing thing to experience. The heat is unbelievable and the air thick with humidity but the rainstorms are truly spectacular and the waterfalls and rivers and wetlands are all in flood and thick with birds, insects and other wildlife. Many tour business’s and hotels remain open and will appreciate showing you the true spectacle of the northern wet season. You’ll probably find they offer some great deals as well.

Another thing to consider when deciding which way to go is to start your trip with the easier more ‘civilised’ travelling and work your way up to the more adventurous sections as you get more experience.

So when deciding which way to go, consider the weather and the time of year, saving the hard stuff until later in the trip and, if you think it makes a difference, the prevailing wind directions.

The most important thing is to be aware of the weather you’re likely to experience at different times in different places and factor it into your plan so you have the best chance of maximizing the experience.

Find out more about typical weather patterns here:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/

What do you think? Leave a comment below or cast your vote on our Facebook Poll

We asked expert Keith Corbett from Tambo Campers for the inside story on camper trailer brakes.

To Brake or Not to Brake

Take a typical standard offroad camper trailer weighing say 550kg and add a few options such as kitchen and toolbox. Then fill up a couple of jerry cans and you’re already at around 630kg and within striking distance of the legal gross weight of 750kg.

If you were to add a water tank say 60litres then it’s a no contest in our view, put brakes on! You’ll be legal and while that’s part of the objective, you’re safer and that’s what it should be about. If you have all that weight on the trailer and don’t opt for the brakes, then you’re running the risk of derailing your trip in the middle of your travels and incurring the expenses of a bad car accident. If you don’t have the brakes for the trailer, I’d definitely make sure that you’ve done a thorough car insurance comparison online before departing on your long trip.

For many years and for foreseeable future we expect secondhand camper trailers to hold their value, so there’s a better than even money bet you’ll recoup most of your investment in brakes if you sell. One of our Tambo customers gave his camper 4 years extremely hard labour and sold it for only $1,000 less than he paid for it. We hear these stories all the time and are convinced that if you can handle the $550-650 investment, go for brakes.

If you believe you can keep the weight down and you’re comfortable without brakes, that’s fine and you can stop reading this article.

So the next question is which set-up will be work for you. There are three main types of braking systems to choose from.

Mechanical Override

These are drum style brakes that rely on the special coupling being compressing when the trailer pushes against the vehicle during braking. A cable then becomes taught and pulls on a level that applies the brakes. I’m not a fan because they are either ON or OFF with minimal if any variability. If the vehicle is on unmade and slippery tracks these brakes will only work with weight or inertia being applied to rear of vehicle. They can then oscillate between on and off that makes it difficult to control your trailer.

Hydraulic Override

Instead of a cable activating the brakes, this system uses hydraulic fluid. The special coupling has a reservoir and is connected to the brakes via copper tube or brake line. If you go this way remember the fluid needs to be checked for impurities, especially water and changed regularly. These brakes have the same operational limitations as do Mechanical Override in that they are virtually ON or OFF.

Electric Brakes

Through a controller mounted in your vehicle, electric brakes apply a constant and variable amount of braking on your trailer. Your trailer is braking and not pushing your vehicle which is a huge benefit. Electric brakes are smoother and safer especially in off road situations. The brakes can also be manually applied via the controller in you vehicle -  great for drying out brakes after a water crossing. Also if you are in a situation where you are descending in low range in a low gear you can apply trailer braking manually as and when required to take the load off the vehicle.

A point to consider with electric is the extra expense in having a brake controller fitted, say $250-350 depending on the unit. Further, if your camper were to be towed behind a variety of vehicles, they would all have to be fitted with a controller.

Drums are by far the most common style of electric brakes. The disk brakes can be more vulnerable to the stones, rocks dust that spray over them in an offroad situation.

Tambo Campers fit electric drum brakes in the vast majority of cases where brakes are required and receive great feedback from our customers.

Handbrakes

If you choose to go with brakes, consider the convenience of having a handbrake fitted. With each type of brakes discussed here, you can add a handbrake relatively easily.  A good quality handbrake fitted to an electric brake set-up usually would cost less than $200.

and finally the Brake Controller

If you choose electric brakes, you will also need to install a brake controller in your vehicle. The controller sets the power or severity of braking and the timing of when brakes are activated. Brake controllers feed power through the normal trailer wiring and communicate with the brakes. The pendulum style controllers are considered the best and will send the correct amount of braking to the trailer depending on how severely the vehicle is stopping.

Steves Comments – For our Big Lap we opted for electric brakes on our Tambo Cooper and had Boronia Auto Electrics (Melb 03 9729 7299) fit the above Prodigy Controller. Both performed beautifully and I was able to adjust the braking strength such that I could feel the trailer pulling on the car when braking which kept everything nicely in control, especially on long downhill runs.

Tip – make sure your brake wiring is well shielded from flying rocks and flexing suspension as a broken wire = no brakes.

Steve & Jen at the tip of Cape York - October 1998

It sounds like a staggering amount of people but it’s true that right now over 100,000 people are on their way on the trip of their lifetime travelling around Australia. A year from now it will be another 100,000 and a year after that, another.

Sounds like it would be crowded but Australia’s a big country and there is plenty of room for you.

But while there are so many people out there living their dream,  there are a lot more people that would like to go but never will. They say ‘I’d love to do that one day’ but they never will. When it comes to the crunch, selling or renting their house, quitting their job or taking the kids out of school just seems too hard.

Many people resolve to go when they retire and become ‘grey nomads’. By far the majority of around Australia travellers are grey nomads forming impromptu convoys up and down the highways around the country.

This is a great thing and I fully expect to become one myself in 20 or 30 years from now but here’s the thing.

Many grey nomads you meet on the road will have a similar story.

It goes something like this . . .

“It’s great to see you travelling around Australia while you’re still young, and with your young kids as well – fantastic. Oh how we wish we’d done it when we were younger and not waited until retirement”

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had that conversation of a variation of it.

I met a man at one of our camps who came over for a chat. He was in his late sixties and had been on the road with his wife for about 6 months. He told me about how he had seriously considered retiring 5 years ago. He had tonnes of money to see him out so didn’t need to work any more but despite this chose to work another 5 years before taking off on their perpetual big lap.

It had turned out to be the biggest regret of his life. He literally teared up while telling me about it. He already had enough money 5 years ago, now he just had more – so what.

What he now knew that he didn’t then is that travelling around Australia doesn’t need much money and he’ll never get those 5 years back. He could have lapped the country 5 times and met thousands of new friends, instead he just had more numbers in his bank account.

If travelling around Australia is something you really want to do and you’re not ready to retire yet then ask yourself what you will regret more – going now OR not going now. I think you already know the answer.

To make your dream trip, the ‘Big Lap’, a reality the very first step is to actually make the decision to go.

Most of the people who will be on their way around Australia 2, 3 or 4 years from now are dreaming about it and planning it already. They’ve made the decision and are working towards it.

Jen and I made the ‘decision’ to do the big one on our way up to Cape York from Melbourne in October 1998. We had escaped from our business for 10 weeks and were in our newly purchased second hand 80 series Landcruiser (same one we still have) and we started talking about taking a whole year off to drive around the whole country. We’d sell our business and just go. It was a fantasy that we allowed ourselves to indulge in but we kept talking about it.

For several weeks it was just an idea, a dream that was a lot easier said than done. Our business was not in a ready to sell state as we’d recently bought a new printing press and had a LOT of debt wrapped around it. We had a few years of work to do first at least.

But despite this, in the space of that 10 week trip, we resolved to do it, one day, one way or another, no matter what it took we were going to devote at least a year to doing the Big Lap.

At that stage we were in our late 20′s and without kids and we expected to go before kids arrived on the scene – funny how things turn out.

Planning To Go – Turning your dream into a plan

Once you’ve decided that you are no longer thinking about it but are actually going to do it then everything else starts to fall into place around the trip. It’s almost like magic!

It doesn’t matter how far out the trip is – it can be years away like it was for us (7 years and 2 daughters in fact) . But every decision you make and everything else you do from that point onwards will be done in consideration for how is it going to affect your trip, one way or another. If we buy a house what will we do with it when we go? Sell it or rent it out? If we buy a car will it be the one we take around Oz or not? What if we have a baby?

This helps to make your trip a reality because you talk about it and take actions as if it is a reality and inevitably it happens that way.

Draw a line between now and the future when you’ll be leaving and figure out what you need to engineer to get there. These are then your goals and your to do list.

To help keep you focussed on the goal, buy yourself a big map of Australia and stick it up on a wall somewhere in the study or the pool room. Somewhere that everyone can see it.

Use a texta to mark places you want to go and things you want to see. Talk about what you expect an area to be like and circle the ‘must see’ destinations. Get everyone involved including the kids if you have them. When you start to actually see your trip unfolding on the map it becomes a lot more real.

It’s likely there will be many hurdles to overcome between the decision to leave and driving out the driveway but determination will get you over the hurdles if you stay focused on your goal.

Be flexible – you may need to change dates, you may need to wait another year.

But decide now that no matter what, you are going to do the trip one way or another.

Now watch and see how everything starts to fall into place.

Feel free to leave a comment below to tell me you’ve decided to go. I’ll be the first to congratulate you.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Found this great video on Vimeo.com – had to share it.

I caught up with 4WD expert Peter Pilgrim from Out Of Town 4WD in Newcastle and he took us out to the famous Stockton Beach for some fun driving in the sand. In this video Peter explains what you need to know to be able to drive on sand without getting stuck.

On our Big Lap around Australia we spent quite a lot of time in remote areas with no power so we needed a reliable power source to run the fridge/freezer, charge batteries and run our laptops. Solar panels are one option but for this trip we opted for an inverter/generator because we wanted the reliability and predictability that came with it.

We chose the Yamaha EF1000is because is was very small and light and also because it is an inverter, which means it delivers a clean and consistent power supply regardless of the load placed on it. If it’s overloded it will shut down but at no point will it deliver less power. This is important when running sensitive electronic devices like laptop computer which are prone to damage with an erratic supply of power.

Cheap Chinese generators aren’t able to deliver the consistent power that a quality inverter can.

I made the above video a few years ago but it gives you a good overview of the features of the Yamaha so it’s worth a look if you’re in the market for a good inverter/generator.

The original site was launched way back in 2005 and has gone through several upgrades along the way but this is by far the biggest and most exciting. By moving to the WordPress platform we now have the capacity to publish more information about travelling around Australia – more often and in a format that will be easier to read, watch and share.

The site is now live and we’re adding new content on a fairly steady basis so make sure you follow us on Facebook, Twitter or RSS to make sure you stay connected.

Cheers

Steve Baile

Travelling around Australia with kids will be the experience of a lifetime for you and them

Some people called us crazy when we told them we planned to do a “Big Lap” of Australia with our young daughters who were only 18 months and 4 years old when we left. Some even called us irresponsible but the overwhelming majority could see that this would be a special time for us and our kids and it was worth any risk or hardship.

And they were right! The reality is that having kids is a challenge no matter whether you are living at home or travelling around Australia but on our 16 month adventure we learned a few things that you may like to take on board.

Ease The Transition

We started talking to our kids about our “Big Trip” about a year before we left. We put up a map on the wall and marked our proposed route. When we saw a place on TV we planned to go we’d point it out and talk about it.

Basically we built the anticipation so they were looking forward to it. We also had plenty of time to discuss any fears they may have before we got going.

We also emulated their bedroom to an extent in our camper trailer – we took their quilts, pillows, books and special toys so that they had a tangible connection with their life at home, again easing the transition.

It didn’t matter where we were geographically, their familiar and secure bedroom was always with us.

Keep The Routine

While half the fun of a Big Lap of Oz is getting away from routines and clock watching, kids feel secure when they have consistency. To strike a balance we always made sure the bedtime routine was consistent. This usually involved brushing teeth and a couple of stories in bed before sleep.

Kids also need their sleep and fortunately this was easier to achieve on the road. When you are basically sleeping outside and don’t have TV you tend to work your day around the sun so with 12 hours of night, getting the kids to bed at 7:30 was easier than getting them there at 8:30 at home.

Play

When you’re a kid, Life = Play so we gave our daughters a toy bag each which they could bring some of their favourite toys from home. For example, books, colouring in stuff, baby’s and dolls, dress up clothes etc. While we were actually travelling they could take a few things in the car and we put pockets over the back of the front seats they could stash their bits and pieces into.

Don’t go overboard though because kids are great at improvising and you really want them interacting with the environment so they learn new things. Our eldest, Savanna, built an Indian Tee Pee from a small tarp and some sticks and we made several cubby houses from tarps & rope along the way.

Entertainment

One of the best investments you can make before you go is an in-car DVD player. I realize that some people will argue that you don’t go on holidays to watch movies but put it in perspective. You’ll spend upwards of 400 hours in the car on a lap around Australia and there are only so many games of I Spy and 20 questions you can play. Allowing the kids to watch 2 or 3 movies on a long driving day will keep them sane and give you some quiet time to chat or just enjoy the drive.

We bought a DVD folder that has sleeves in it and transferred all the girls DVD’s into it before we left home which was much more compact and easier to manage that the DVD cases. You’ll also want to get headphones with your DVD player so you don’t have to listen to the same movies a dozen times.

Kids also love playgrounds and when we checked into a caravan park or stopped at a park for lunch, we always had an eye out for a good playground. They will play for hours and then be so tired that they’ll sleep soundly all night – perfect!

Driving Days

We soon learned that travelling with kids had an impact on the distance we could realistically cover in a day. Forget 800km days. We tried to set a limit of 500 km and even then we found that we’d cover an average of about 50km every hour so it was still a long day. You need to build in more and longer stops to allow the kids to get out and run around otherwise, well, they’ll drive you crazy!

We met a couple of families on our trip who were using their 3 months long service to do a lap of oz. We calculated they needed to cover an average of 300km every single day to get around the country which probably explained why they looked pretty tired and frazzled.

Friends

Kids make friends very easily, in fact sometimes a bit too easily. While it is great that they can walk up to some other kids and be playing happily 5 minutes later, this does create an element of risk that you need to keep front of mind.

In Alice Springs, Sara, who was about 2 ½ at the time, made friends with another boy near our camp and ended up wandering off with him to his site about 100 metres away. We found her 15 minutes later but it was a pretty nervous 15 minutes.

You can’t keep them locked up so you just have to keep your eyes on them all the time – we would tell them constantly that if they can’t see us, we can’t see them.

Whenever we spotted other kids camped nearby we’d try to say hello to the parents and we’d always find they were as happy for their kids to have someone to play with as we were. We would also then both be keeping an eye on the kids, which created a larger safety net.

We were also a little cautious with the types of caravan parks we’d stay in. Generally, the more “touristy” the better. We avoided parks that were predominantly full of permanent residents, partly because they were not geared for travellers but also because they can occasionally attract some less than desirable characters.

Safety

Having touched on safety, I’ll expand on a few more points.

Wildlife

There are inevitably risks associated with snakes, spiders & crocodiles but realistically these are minimal if managed. We trained our daughters not to jump over logs or run blindly into the bush and to be aware that snakes are around – but don’t be terrified of them because, given an easy exit path they will happily take it.

Our rule was that if you encountered a snake, STOP and freeze, then slowly back away from the snake, tell anyone else nearby to watch out for it then come and tell mum or dad. Savanna and I actually encountered a large Western Brown snake one night on the floor in a toilet in Karijini National Park and rather than make a big drama of it, we stood quietly and watched it and in a few minutes it went on it’s way.

Crocodiles are the other real risk in the northern part of the country. We taught our daughters that unless we absolutely knew otherwise, we assumed that all water had crocodiles in it. We didn’t tell them that crocodiles were bad or monsters but that they were wild animals that were always looking for food and if you get into their patch of water then they may accidentally mistake you for food. This was all it took.

Cars

I actually think that the biggest danger kids face while travelling is from speeding cars in caravan parks. Too many people ignore the “Drive at walking pace” rules in caravan parks and they speed around at anything up to 60km/h sometimes. Kids can so easily walk out from behind a car or caravan and not see or hear a car coming at them. If you see someone speeding in a caravan park, do everyone a favour and point out the dangers to them (one way or another) and if that doesn’t work, report them.

Realistically the danger of hitting a child in a caravan park while speeding is many times greater than having an accident while speeding on the road – unfortunately some people don’t think about the “what if” factor.

Getting Lost

Given your environment changes so frequently it may be hard for your 3 year old to explain where their camp is. It’s worth writing your mobile phone number on a card and putting it in your kids’ pocket so that in the event they do get lost then someone who finds them can give you a call.

You do have to be more alert for your kids safety while travelling but don’t let it put you off or worry you too much. Common sense and a good radar for trouble will keep them safe. Don’t try and shelter them too much – they should know why crocodiles and snakes are dangerous and how to avoid them but at the same time learn to love them for the amazing wild animals they are – it’s about respect, not fear.

Schooling

I can’t speak with authority about schooling your kids on the road because both of ours were pre-school age. However we did meet plenty of parents with school age kids along the way.

Here’s some of the tips we gleaned from them:

• The education department will give you far too many books and materials to take with you however apparently the Queensland Education Department has a compact travel schooling kit so this might be worth looking into.
• The workload set down is hard to keep up with and most parents seem content to let their kids learn as much as possible from the trip itself and catch up the academic stuff later.
• It is easier to do the schooling in concentrated bursts than bits every day.

Obviously the older your kids are, the greater the pressure will be to keep the schooling up so they don’t fall behind. One observation we made was that high school age teenagers were probably the least enthusiastic about the whole experience because they missed their friends and life back home and didn’t want to fall behind at school. This is something you would need to manage if you plan to travel with teenage kids.

Having said that, keep it in perspective. Not many kids get to travel around Australia at all and the lessons your kids will learn about Australia, life and other people should not be undervalued.

New Experiences

Sharing new and often unplanned experiences with your kids is a great adventure. Kids are highly durable and adaptable so don’t smother them in cotton wool. When we broke down in the middle of Western Queensland we were stuck for three days waiting for parts to arrive so we could fix the car. We had no facilities at all. We washed in a nearby creek and dug a hole for a toilet. The kids couldn’t have cared less. They take it all in their stride. In fact it has turned out to be one of the more memorable experiences of our trip.

Have your default routines to keep them in balance but also be prepared to adapt your trip to suit theirs and your needs. With clear boundaries and lots of love they’ll have the adventure of a lifetime with you.

And one more thing, buy them a digital camera each before you go. In years to come being able to look back at the photos from your trip will far outweigh the relatively small cost of a couple of cameras now.