Australia Travel Guide
This is the record of how I spent my time while in the country. I aim to communicate my experiences and this acts as a centralised place for all written, audio and visual commentary from my trip.
It should be of some interest to those who value travel. I hope that it can assist anyone who is planning to do something similar with their time as well. I continue to add to it as I move from place to place.
Adelaide to Alice Springs
The journey from Adelaide to Alice Springs was my very first long-haul bus trip and by far the most interesting one I have been on. It didn’t exactly go according to plan but I never expected this trip to be set in stone.
The Greyhound Bus broke down between Adelaide and Port Augusta and I was stranded on the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere for hours while a replacement bus was found and brought to pick me up.
Credit goes to the driver who, given the circumstances handled the situation professionally. As well as his colleague who not only found a bus but spent his Friday evening driving it up from Adelaide to rescue me!
Regardless of the mishaps, it was an experience I will never forget. To the locals this was a serious inconvenience, they had jobs and families to get to. For me it was all part of the adventure and it kept things interesting.
I continued on my way towards Port Augusta and by the early morning had joined the Stuart Highway. It is an intercontinental road that connect Darwin in the Northern Territory with the rest of Australia.
From there it was still going to be a long way north to get to Alice Springs. I passed through Pimba, a roadhouse notable for being near the place where the British Nuclear program was developed in the 1950s.
Then the town of Coober Pedy. Renowned for supplying the majority of the world’s opals. After that I reached Ghan which was an important milestone because it meant I had crossed over the border into the Northern Territory.
At long last the bus pulled into Alice Springs and I had reached the halfway mark on my journey to Darwin. Covering 1500km in just over a day. For now it was time to get some rest and it had been well earned.
Alice Springs to Darwin
The Stuart Highway is a 3,000 KM lifeline connecting Darwin in the Northern Territory to the rest of Australia. The road is named after John McDouall Stuart, the first person to cross the continent and tell the tale.
During World War II the path he broke and the route he mapped would be transformed into a modern road. Today the path is punctuated by isolated roadhouses that serve the weary travelers on this remote highway.
Boarding the Greyhound bus at Alice Springs in the late afternoon, the on-paper 22-hour journey to Darwin will put me in the capital of the Northern Territory sometime in the afternoon of the next day.
Day turned to night and I woke up somewhere between Tennant Creek and Katherine. Overnight the environment had changed from arid orange to pale green. A clear sign that the weather was changing the further north I got.
I was approaching but not yet in the tropical climate that Darwin and the north half of the territory were known for. I was soon to leave the dry bushlands behind me and enter a climate that is foreign to a European.
As I approached Darwin I could see towering columns of smoke as if the whole city had been engulfed in flames. Thankfully these large plumes that created a haze over the horizon were only natural bushfires.
Then after nearly a day on the road I finally got to my end goal and the capital of the Northern Territory - Darwin. After so much nothing on the road, it was great to feel like I was back in civilization.
The Northern Territory is 5 times the size of the UK but has only 250,000 residents. Over half of them call Darwin home. This combination creates an atmosphere of a small town but with the infrastructure of a capital city.
Darwin to Broome
After leaving Darwin I needed to make the 1,800 KM journey west towards Broome. The route on paper is 19 hours but with the Greyhound tax - it took me around 25 hours to finally reach the sleepy town of Broome.
The efforts of the coach drivers have to recognized. They aren’t just driving the bus over immense distances, they are also loading and unloading vital mail for rural communities that would otherwise go undelivered.
The crossing point between Northern Territory and Western Australia is pretty clear. The authorities board the vehicle to ensure I am not secretly running fresh fruit and vegetables across the border.
The next town is Kununurra, a quiet settlement about 30 minutes from the border. It is a hub for those crossing the border on the Victoria Highway. It is the first of many dry towns where the sale of alcohol is highly restricted.
After hours of travelling through the night I finally reached Fitzroy Crossing. A settlement of only 4,000 people but by outback standards it is practically a metropolis. Hosting 10% of the region’s entire population.
The last stretch between Fitzroy Crossing and Broome is the Kimberley. A vast expanse of flat land. It is the size of Spain in Europe but has a population of only 40,000 residents. A truly isolated part of the world.
At long last I reached the town of Broome which owes its entire existence to the historic pearl farming industry. The pristine waters offers a great environment for oyster to inhabit and thrive in.
Although lucrative the work in the early days was extremely lethal. The town owes itself to the brave and hard working Japanese who were natural experts in maritime industry, and sustained Broome in the early days.
