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.

Our camp at Riverside Caravan Park, Swan Hill

This post is from Steve & Jen’s 16 month Big Lap from 2005 to 2007 – we’re reposting it camp by camp in the lead up to the release of their documentary | Learn more

Changing Plans

We woke to a nice clear morning in Echuca after plenty of storm activity last night. Packed up the car by about 9am and did some duck feeding around the lake at the caravan park. Got some good film footage.

Picked up the camper from Horseshoe Lagoon CP which was sitting in inches of water and mud following the rain. The ARB Air Lockers got a workout making sure we didn’t get bogged when dragging the trailer out of the “lake” and managed to avoid chewing up the CP in the process.

Headed into Echuca for a good look around and to get some more footage. Had a ride on horse carriage around the town which the girls loved.

About 12:30 we headed for Mildura.

Along the way we reassessed our route and with so many delays from Jen’s knee surgery 2 weeks before we left and the engine overheating we decided to alter the route to Brisbane to ensure we arrive on time on the 15th October. My mum is flying in to join the expedition through to Christmas and we can’t afford to be late.

We decided to skip the Birdsville route (regretably) and head through central NSW instead via Bourke. Much shorter trip and also places we haven’t been. This is the reality of long range touring, you need to be flexible.

This meant we didn’t need to go all the way to Mildura so we stopped at Swan Hill and checked in to one of our favourite caravan parks, the appropriately named Riverside Caravan Park.

The weather was shocking all the way from Echuca to Swan Hill, driving straight into a head wind, but it cleared up just as we arrived and we had perfect conditions to setup the Tambo – thanks Murphy!

Jen and I Spent the evening planning our route through outback NSW to Brisbane.

R&R

We had a pretty lazy day today. Wandered into town for a bit of shopping and a haircut for me and had some quality playtime with the girls at the playgound.

Came back for a dip in the pool although it was ice water so I left it to the girls to do the dipping and supervised from the sidelines instead.

Dinner was a sensational BBQ of veggies and hamburgers expertly cooked by Jen washed down with a bottle of Poets Corner Red I “borrowed” from my Dads wine rack a couple of days earlier (I put this in to see if he is reading this blog).

Savanna is making new friends every day and has taken to handing out our business card to everyone she meets. She is becoming our little ambassador.

Tonight I talked to the Coodabeen Champions on their show on ABC Radio called “The Idlers” which was a first for me and not nearly as scary as I thought it would be. It’s a great show and I am going to enjoy being part of it.

Either Jen or myself will be talking to them each Saturday night for the next 6 months about how our trip is going which will be fun.

We also went to the Swan Hill Show today and Savanna and I both held live snakes for the first time in the “Snakebusters” tent. The girls, including Jen, had some rides which I happily refrained from.

Bali bombings

Today we woke to the sad news of yet more Bombings in Bali with a few Australians killed. After the events there in the past few years I’m not sure Bali would be high on my must go destination list.

Jen managed to catch up the washing today and I did some maintenance on the trailer, getting the gear under the boat rack sorted out and adding another support chain which holds it up when it is hanging off the side in camp. I was not really that comfortable with the one cable that it came with.

Savanna insisted on going for a swim in the unheated swimming pool and Sara went too. They both love the water and don’t care how cold it is. I can remember being like that when I was young, but not now!

We had a BBQ dinner where we met Brad from Geelong and Savanna made friends with his daughter Charlie.

Preparing to go Bush

With one day to go before we head north to Mungo National Park, it is time to get ready to leave civilization (at last!)

I’ve been practicing with the roof rack camera mount I made and it works well, although I need to use some occy straps to stop the camera vibrating.

Speaking of occy straps, they are the most useful things you can have on a trip like this. We use them constantly and I would estimate we have as many as 40 on the go at any one time. Jen and I were joking about having a regular segment in the documentary entitled “101 Uses For Occy Straps” and I’m now giving it serious consideration.

Anyway, probably not going to get Internet access for a while given we are heading into the outback so I updated my trip log on the website while the girls went to the library.

We had some lunch in Swan Hill and grabbed some bits and pieces before back to camp to pack as much as possible for an early getaway tomorrow.

More updates coming soon

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've jerry rigged a mount for the Sony FX1 video camera to get some action shots

This post is from Steve & Jen’s 16 month Big Lap from 2005 to 2007 – we’re reposting it camp by camp in the lead up to the release of their documentary | Learn more

On the Road Again

Had some running around to do this morning – printed some files at Copies-R-Us and drove into Michaels camera store in the city to get a video camera bag, tripod and microphone.

Managed to get our trip back underway by about 2pm and drove back to Echuca in absolutely miserable weather – driving into strong wind and rain all the way. A couple of days in Melbourne and we’ve gone soft again – We decided to get a cabin in Echuca (Moama) rather than put up the camper in the rain.

Feeling a little stressed about the speed with which the $$$ are going out but should get a handle on it. We’ve been saving pretty aggressively for the past couple of years and have enough money to live on for about 18 months – assuming we live frugally and don’t have any ‘unplanned’ big expenses.

With the upgraded radiator setting us back close to $1000 and only a week into the trip I’m starting to think about other ways to earn some money along the way!

We’re filming our trip to make a documentary about the whole take off around Australia experience and given we have no real budget to speak of I’m having to improvise when it comes to kit. I want to get some shots from the car as we’re driving along so I jerry rigged a camera mount which attaches to the roof rack using a pergola support bracket I picked up from Bunnings for a few dollars. It works okay although a bit wobbly.

Ocky straps help to control the shakes. I’ll keep experimenting as we go and see if I can improve it.

The girls are having a ball – they seem to be taking everything in their stride and each day as it comes.

Next camp >

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

Josh pressure testing the radiator - it's pretty blocked!!

This post is from Steve & Jen’s 16 month Big Lap from 2005 to 2007 – we’re reposting it camp by camp in the lead up to the release of their documentary | Learn more

Days 8 to 10

Back to Melbourne

Today we head back to Melbourne so we had to pack up the camper. We were able to leave it at the CV park until we get back so avoided having to tow it all the way back to Melbourne and back (about 460km round trip).

Still took about 3 hours to pack up and we finally hit the road about 1pm.

No overheating problems while not towing the trailer.

Arrived at Dad & Bevs (Grandma and Grandpa’s) about 4pm to a dinner feast as usual.

Both girls slept really well tonight and Jen and I managed to get a full nights sleep – luxury.

New radiator

Off to Camberwell Service Centre today where Josh and Shane diagnosed a blocked radiator as the cause of the problem rather than the head or head gasket.

They pulled the radiator out and sent it off for checking and repairing.

Meanwhile I installed our UHF radio and a new radio aerial so we can pick up ABC on AM band.

Result came back from the radiator place that it was 20% blocked which is enough to cause overheating so we decided to upgrade to a 3 core radiator and totally over engineer the cooling system.

Josh also replaced the thermostat in the engine while the radiator was out as a precaution.

Radiator due back tomorrow so no more to do today.

Jabs and storage

While waiting for car to be ready, we took the girls to the clinic for their next tetanus, whooping cough and diptheria booster and Jen and I decided to have a Meningococal C vaccination while we were there. Better to be safe than sorry.

We had lunch in the park in Eltham before driving out to Melton to offload to excess gear (clothes, linen etc.) into our storage shed at Storage King.

Had a coffee with Ivana (Jens’ step mom) and then spent nearly 2 hours in the traffic driving to Camberwell to pick up the Landcruiser  – can’t wait to get out of Melbourne . . . again!!!

Picked up the Landcruiser and back to Dads place to finish packing ready for departure tomorrow.

Next camp >