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Chapter 2
The Route
Where you arrive in Australia dictates where you start out on your big trip. It also affects WHEN you start out. The common factor, wherever you start, is which way you make your circumnavigation - clockwise or anticlockwise. There are two major aspects to consider:
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the prevailing winds |
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the northern winter |
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Looking off shore - Dunk Island
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The wind may seem the least likely factor to take into account when planning the trip. But you need only one day's travel bucking into a stiff headwind to realise what a significant factor it is. And your wallet will feel the strain when you pull up to refuel. The difference between a 30 kph headwind and a 30 kph tailwind is 60 kph of wind. When you are bucking into 30 kph of wind, the driver going the other way is 60 kph better off, windwise. Compared with calm conditions, that 30 kph headwind could add 50% to your fuel bill.
We went around Australia with the wind behind us for most of the way, which means we went anticlockwise. Up the east coast, round via Darwin, down to Perth, back across the Nullarbor. We struck headwinds in the run from Cairns back down to Townsville, and from Port Augusta down to Adelaide. Two days of headwinds during the whole trip. Day after day we rolled along with the trade winds behind us.
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On the Darwin to Katherine leg the weather was calm, and from Geraldton southwards we had a beam wind.
The Season
Perhaps of greater significance is traveling in the right season. The northern, tropical sector of your trip should be completed within the period between the months from June to October. On a round trip over five to six months, three of those months will be spent in the tropics. So there is a leeway of an extra two months where your schedule can be shuffled ahead or brought back, yet still get you through the tropics during the northern winter, which is the non-cyclone season.
This means that if you go anticlockwise, you should be heading through Rockhampton (Tropic of Capricorn) anytime from early June through to early August. We left Sydney on May 15 and our schedule was as follows:
| Rockhampton |
June 1st |
| Cairns |
June 7th |
| Mt. Isa |
June 24th |
| Darwin |
June 29th |
| Kakadu |
June 14th |
| Kununurra |
July 23rd |
| Broome |
July 31st |
| Carnarvon |
Aug 14th |
| Perth |
Aug 23rd |
| Albany |
Sept 14tyh |
| Adelaide |
Sept 27th |
| Melbourne |
Oct 11th |
| Sydney |
Oct 23rd |
Reference to this schedule shows that we were in Perth in late August, Adelaide late September and in Melbourne in October. With hindsight, we should have left Sydney a month to six weeks later, to have enjoyed warmer weather in the southern capitals. Personally, I found the northwestern areas of Darwin, Kakadu and Kununurra too hot and sticky in the afternoons, but the mornings and evenings were delightful. | | |
