As an Australian living abroad, I often get asked for advice from people who want to visit my homeland.
Typically the conversation goes something like this:
Person: “I’m thinking of hiring a car and going to the Great Barrer Reef, the Gold Coast, Sydney, Melbourne and Uluru. Maybe Perth.”
Me: “How long are you going for?”
Person: “One, maybe two weeks.”
Me: “Have you looked at a map?”
Person: “Sure, it looks doable.”
Me: “Have you looked at the scale?”
For the record, Australia is the planet’s sixth largest country after Russia, Canada, China, the USA, and Brazil.
Its land area is 7,692,024 km2 and the country is largely arid.
The distance from Sydney to Uluru is 2,835.5 km, which, according to Google, is 30 hours of solid driving (over often poor roads). Sydney to Perth is 3934.71 km, about 35 hours — three days — of nonstop driving, much of it through the Nullabor desert.
Sensible people take many weeks, or months, to drive from place to place.
Even if you visited all those places by air over a week or two, you’d spend more time in the air or in airport terminals than actually seeing the country.
If you are planning a trip to Australia from overseas, and you don’t have the time, I’d suggest working out your “must-see” itinerary. Then spend a lot of time with schedules to see how doable it really is.
Bear in mind that, no matter where you travel, it’s best to see a few things really well and savour the moment than to see lots of things in a blur.
*This is a “map” I drew for an American friend in an attempt points of interest in Australia. Yes, I missed a few important bits, including the Great Australian Bight — but I did include the often-overlooked island state of Tasmania.
