Campervanning the East Coast

For us, Australia had always conjured up images of hostile bush country and endless parched red dirt roads. So we were surprised by the diversity of landscapes that we encountered, even though we visited just a fraction of this huge continent: Melbourne, to the Great Ocean Road and inland New South Wales, before hitting the East Coast northwards from Sydney all the way up to Daintree National Park. We also couldn’t miss visiting the Red Center: Ayer’s Rock and King’s Canyon, so we flew there for 4 days towards the end of our trip.

Our highlights were many: the dramatic limestone cliffs and crashing waves along the Great Ocean Road, the enjoyable bush walks in the Grampions National Park, meeting up with friends in the Blue Mountains, Sydney, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, the laid-back beach camp in 1770 and snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef, spotting koalas in the wild on Magnetic Island, trekking the remote Jurassic-Park-like Hinchinbrook island and sharing our campsite with a 2m long python!, and enjoying endless rainforest walks, waterfalls, beaches and sunsets in North Queensland. Uluru National Park was a personal highlight, with its enigmatic, perfectly smooth monoliths, surrounded by stark green and yellow bush and dunes of fine red sand – and ‘camping’ in our small rental car was quite the adventure!

Comparing to New-Zealand, Australia is also much more camper-van friendly: more spacious campsites and free camps, cheaper fuel, better facilities, fires allowed and no mud, rain or sandflies! We got very attached to our little ‘combi’ van in the 6 weeks we had it, travelling almost 7000 km without a hitch. The ‘WikiCamps’ app is the best for up-to-date information on campsites, amenities and attractions.

Last but not least, we were enchanted but the diverse flora, and unique endemic fauna, which Australia is not famed enough for. We succeeded in admiring all these animals in the wild: wallabies, koalas, platypus, turtles, possum, wombat, cassowaries, crocodiles, dingos and a plethora of lizards, snakes, butterflies and birds (the parrots or cockatoos especially are delightfully colourful and entertaining).

Australia, we will be back!

Click on the following link to find out more: https://thisfaraway.com/category/australia/