ROAD TRIP! :3 or How to cross Australia by car.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Hey folks! Not sure if ya lot missed me or not But anyways I have a small report on the trip.

This trip was taken because my brother used my car to move to Melbourne, a capital city on the other side of Australia from the city I live in: Perth.  My car was selected because A) its a Tank  B) had enough space in it to bring his stuff (and his girlfriend's who moved with him) over. So last week my brother and my father started the drive, and arrived on Friday.

I flew into Melbourne on Saturday, the plan being I could muck around and help my bro get settled in and such. Original plan was to leave on Monday, but we changed that to give him more help.

So Tuesday rolls round and my Dad and I step into a (considerably) lighter car for the return trip.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=Melbourne+VIC&daddr=Perth&hl=en&geocode=&mra=pe&mrcr=0&sll=-34.894009,130.413714&sspn=24.771209,39.550781&ie=UTF8&ll=-34.415973,130.429688&spn=24.907658,39.550781&z=5

So yea see that blue line there? That's was our route.

Total time taken was about 37 to 38 hours, with several very short stops for food and petrol. We basically did 2 hours at the wheel at a time or to the town closest to two hours travel time while the other slept.

The trip for me was very enjoyable as I love driving, but I've never driven this far or for this long, so I was a bit nervous.

Dad started as the driver our of Melbourne at about 2pm. To be brutally honest I can't really describe anything exciting for you all until we were about 30 minutes past Port Augusta at 2 am Wednesday morning.  I'd just swapped with dad so he was again driving, when I heard a man who never swears blurt out "Oh shit" before a thump and some debris flies past the windscreen (I had the seat all the way down so I could sleep). We stop the car and assess the damage....And we got off damn lucky, according to dad it was a wandering sheep that ran in front of the car. I can't confirm that as it was pitch black and we were to far to go back and check, but judging from the remains stuck to the car and the speed that sucker is dead...

So we start off again and the rest of dad's shift was uneventful. When I took over I was extremely lucky to avoid two Kangaroos.

But the rest of the drive was plain sailing till we were about 60km from Norseman, when we picked up a guy who's car had run dry. We dropped him off at the same petrol station we filled up at and I was glad to see he got a lift back out.

We crawled back into Perth at 4am on Thursday, I was driving. We ended up at my place due to the fact dad didn't want to wake mum up.

So there ya have it 3422km of solid driving. I had a ball.



Random items:
Car: 5  Random wildlife: 1 (We actually hit 2 rabbits and 2 birds as well as the sheep. Tho only the sheep did damage)

Driving at night with Highbeams on and seeing the road disappear as you near a dip or the top of a hill is scary as hell. Still fun as tho.

I hate the cruise control on my car as it seems to not work right of the bat for me, yet perfect for dad.

Bugs are annoying as hell and can't be washed off the windscreen as it just smears them all over making it worse.

People who don't turn off their Highbeams when approaching another car/truck are assholes.

I saw (while awake and driving) 56 items of roadkill.

Average temperature outside during this trip was 35C  (Yes that is including night time temp as well).

*Edit* Link fixed thanks guys.

[VSMIT]

Note to Pal, links don't work due to the fact that HTML is not supported by SMF boards.  So if you could take a pic and post the pic it may work better.

[Tapewolf]

I've fixed the 'View Larger Map' link.  The other one won't work because it looks like you're trying to include it inline.  I'm not seeing the blue line, though.

Anyway, glad you had fun.


**EDIT**
Oh, that's impressive.

[Lysander]

That's a nice distance to travel. I remember when driving through lots of country sudden drops on hills are great. One that almost turned bad was going over a hill and a stop sign was only a small ways from the top of the hill, and it the road didn't continue but ended in a "T" intersection with a very steep drop beyond the stop sign. Good times.   

[Azlan]

Interesting, street view in Perth was interesting... it looks like San Diego.

That is a rather impressive distance, I have done almost the same distance when we drove from San Diego, CA to Vancouver, BC.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Now that sounds like one hell of a trip Az, how long did it take you?

[Azlan]

Now that sounds like one hell of a trip Az, how long did it take you?

It took a week because we also made stops along the way to sight see.

[Valynth]

Meh, for a vacation when I was (I think) ten, my folks took me on a trip to visit relatives/sight see through the perimeter states of the continental United States with the exception of California (we still managed to get to washington through the surrounding states) it took about a month and a half of driving/stopping with a foldout camper as our sleeping space.

And you guys stayed in hotels?  You rich bastards.

[ShadesFox]

Oh wow.  Good thing you had someone with you in the car.  I would have to drive with someone on a 30+ hour trip.  I almost went crazy on the 8 hour trip to Pittsburgh X3