A working guide to Australia for a friend planning a long trip — focused on Sydney and a big driving loop of the rest of the country: down the Great Ocean Road, across the Nullarbor, up the west coast into the Kimberley, through the Red Centre, and back via the Top End and Tropical North Queensland.
Living doc. Cross-linked. Wikipedia + Google Maps links throughout.
Start here
- Sydney — home base
- Suggested itineraries — 1 week to 8+ weeks
- Driving in Australia — distances, wildlife, road trains, rentals
Cities
- Sydney — harbour city, eastern beaches, coastal walks
- Melbourne — laneways, coffee, cultural capital
- Brisbane — subtropical, gateway to Gold Coast, Noosa & K’gari
- Adelaide — wine country gateway, gracious + underrated
- Perth — most isolated capital on earth, Fremantle + Rottnest
- Darwin — Top End, Timor Sea sunsets
- Cairns — reef & rainforest
Drives & bush
- Great Ocean Road — Melbourne → Adelaide
- Nullarbor — Adelaide → Perth, the big crossing
- Southwest WA — Margaret River, Karri forests, Esperance
- The Kimberley — Broome, Gibb River Road, Purnululu
- Red Centre & Uluṟu — Alice, Kata Tjuṯa, King’s Canyon
- Top End — Darwin, Kakadu, Litchfield, Katherine
- Tropical North Queensland — Daintree, Cape Trib, Reef
- Tasmania — bonus loop south
Practical
A note on names
Australia has many dual-named places — Uluṟu / Ayers Rock, Kata Tjuṯa / the Olgas, K’gari / Fraser Island. The Indigenous names are standard and worth using. The continent has been continuously inhabited for at least 65,000 years — by some distance the longest continuous culture on earth.