My Aussie Outback Adventure

During my second year here I embarked on an epic two week road trip to experience the incredible Australian Outback.

To say it is such a massive place is a huge understatement! There is nowhere quite like it anywhere else in the world, and this makes it a definite for your Aussie bucket list.

From Alice Springs to Uluru, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon, the vast Red Centre is a magical and fascinating place to explore and witness with your own eyes.

I went with a group of three other friends and we chose to hire a camper van for two weeks. It is an important task choosing the right one as you have to consider the amount of space and facilities you need and of course, where to sleep. We rented the Jucy Condo from the company Jucy, which came equipped with cooking facilities, a fridge, a sink and two double beds.

However this was a bit tight so two of us ended up buying a tent and sleeping in that which was actually a great experience in the outback, lying under the countless stars every night.

We planned to stay at free/cheap camping spots that we could find along the way, and this ended up ranging from sleeping on the side of the road to luxury camp grounds and anything in between.

So, what to take with you...

As you are travelling such long distances and can go hundreds of kilometres without passing any form of shops it is very important to go prepared. Before we left we did a big grocery shop, buying all the essentials we thought we'd need.

This list included:

• Lots and lots of water

• About a week's worth of food as we would stock up once we hit the first major town (pasta, rice, burgers, fresh fruit/veg, cereal, wraps, tuna...anything easy to cook)

• Sunscreen

• Bug spray - you will 100% need this

• Bite creams

• Toilet paper/wet wipes can come in handy

• Washing up liquid and sponges (for our portable kitchen)

As we were already backpacking, everything else we had with us but it is a good idea to have some form of sturdy walking shoes, hat, sunglasses, towels, hot weather clothes as it can reach very high temperatures and a jumper/jacket for the cooler nights as you travel further south.

Hint: Mobile phone service is not great in the outback unsurprisingly, but Telstra is definitely the best network to go with as most of the time you can get a tiny bit of signal.

A great and useful app to download before you head off is WikiCamps as this contains a ton of information about free and paid campsites as well as road side rest areas and points of interest. All the info is displayed as symbols so you can tell easily whether a campsite has power, water, toilets and showers.

So, the adventure begins..

We started our adventure in Cairns and chose our end destination as Melbourne, driving through the state of Queensland, into the Northern Territory, down through South Australia and completing our journey in Victoria. And we had exactly two weeks to drive ourselves from start to finish in good old Barney. (Yes we named our van..)

The epic adventure was full of ups and downs - the downs mainly being the endless amount of flies, like literally everywhere, and the incredibly high cost of fuel in the outback, that we didn't quite budget for! But so many beautiful sights you just wouldn't see anywhere else in the world, and stunning destinations to stop at along the way easily made up for it.

The rough plan..

We estimated that we would need to drive approximately 700-800 km each day for the first 3 days to reach Alice Springs. (The driving distance from Cairns to Alice Springs is 1277 km.)

During these first few nights we slept at a free highway rest area beside the road for two nights, only consisting of a toilet and a shower, and we managed to find a very cheap camp site for the third night, only costing $25 for all four of us and the luxury use of hot showers. We did accidentally make a wrong turn so this put us back a day, and all we could find was another road side rest area for the night.

But it was sooo hot at night, and this was before we had bought the tent so I actually, literally slept on the side of the road on just the top of a sheet! But the upside to this horrendous night's sleep was that I woke to the most amazing sunrise the next morning, such a beautiful sight to see.

Back to the journey, and once we reached Alice Springs we stayed at The Gap View Hotel campsite and decided to stay for two nights here as we loved it. It only cost us $15 per night altogether, and we had the use of hot showers, toilets, a swimming pool and there was even a bar. After being in the van on the road for three days this felt like luxury.

From Alice Springs to Uluru it is approximately a 470 km drive, which is around 5-6 hours, so we left early in the morning so we could arrive in the daylight. We stayed at Ayers Rock Campground for two nights. Again, this was a luxury for us as facilities here included a pool, plenty of toilets and hot showers. But this was more pricey, at $22 per night for each person, but it was to be expected due to where we were.

After experiencing the wonder and magnificence of the Big Red Rock, we checked out Kata Tjuta for the day, otherwise known as The Olgas, which is less than an hour's drive from Uluru and both are in the Uluru - Kata Tjuta National Park.

From here we were on the road again and managed to find a free spot to camp for the night on the way to Kings Canyon, our next destination. From Uluru this is only a 4.5 hour drive. This camping spot included toilets, showers, benches to eat at and even a sink with running water to do dishes!

We got up nice and early to hike Kings Canyon before it got too hot. It is absolutely stunning to see, you really can't miss this out!

From here our next goal was to make it to the underground opal mining town of Coober Pedy, down in South Australia. This is about a 760 km drive, so we found a truckers rest stop on the way to spend the night and even got a meal in the road house, what a treat!

The following day we spent a few hours exploring Coober Pedy. We visited Catacomb Church which was very interesting to see as it is an underground church as well as Josephine's Gallery, displaying some amazing Aboriginal art work and has a kangaroo orphanage attached. We checked out Umoona Opal Mine and Museum and visited the Serbian Orthodox Church which was very different to the first church.

Back to our trusty Barney, we started to make the journey from here to Adelaide which is about 850 km. We found a camp site to spend the night at once it got dark. This one just had a trust box for visitors to pay what they felt like for the stay and it was in a lovely, remote area.

We then hit up Adelaide for a few hours, spending some time in the Botanic Park and then we were back on the road to head towards our final major sight; the Great Ocean Road.

We drove for a few hours and stopped at a free campsite on the way to Warrnambool, which is the gateway to the famous Great Ocean Road.

From here we drove another few hours to reach Warrnambool Beach Backpackers where we spent the night... finally the luxury of hostel facilities! We still camped but had the use of the hostel so this made a nice, welcoming change for the evening!

Rising bright and early the next day, we drove the breathtaking, scenic Great Ocean Road. We allowed ourselves the day for this as we knew we'd be taking lots of stops for photos and stunning view points, and ended in Torquay.

We found ourselves our last night's camping spot, in a very remote area and which had the most disgusting toilets ever... but we did see a wild koala wandering back into the bushes here! I remember it being freeeeeezing on this final night, so very different to our first week now that we were in South Australia!

It was only about a 100 km drive from here to Melbourne, where our epic road trip came to an end and we had to say a sad goodbye to our Barney.

All in all I had such a great experience on this epic road trip through Australia's great big outback and it was the most authentic adventure I have done in this country.

Seeing the vast emptiness for miles upon miles, sleeping in a tent underneath the very visible Milky Way every night, exploring the majestic sights of Ayers Rock, Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon and waking for many beautiful sunrises made this an unforgettable trip with fond, lasting memories.