On the Wallaby
February 23rd, 2008 by Tiffany Miller
There is something about a road trip through Australia that really stokes nostalgia and gives you that sense of journey which is often missing from package tours and public transport. Rolling hills, the wind in your hair, and a good song, and suddenly life is a highway.
I cannot stress enough how important I think it is to experience this. Far too many travellers jump on the buses and wind up in a different city every few days sampling the pubs and seeing no more wildlife than a dead ‘roo on the roadside every once in a while. Get your own wheels. Get on the wallaby (and find out what that means). Here are your options:
Car. Hire a car from any of the 5 billion rental agencies. Pretty straightforward. Or buy a car from one of the 5 billion sales ads posted on hostel notice boards and try not to get ripped off. Something to consider is buying from a dealer with a buy-back guarantee- that saves you the headache of trying to sell it to another wary traveller at the end.
Camper/Kombi van. Hire a camper. Check out the most popular (and so least likely to rip you off) companies around, like Wicked Campers (the ones with the psycho graffiti all over them), Hippy Campers (the ones with the flower power all over them), and Calypso Campervans ( the ones with nothing all over them- in case you want to be a little more low-key)…
You may want to head north on the buses, and then hire a camper for the trip back down south. I have met heaps of travellers who decided halfway up the coast that they should have done the self-drive thing.
Hostels often offer free pick up service, but for out-of-the-way places this can be a real hassle. You initially take the bus option because you think it will be easier, but it ends up being more of a pain in the long run. Although some Australian towns and cities are excrutiatingly sign-deficient, driving is for the most part straightforward (albeit on the other side of the road). And when you see the sign for Yungaburra, you can (and should) take it.
Just two rules: don’t drive like an idiot and wind up with a $250 fine. And don’t buy a car on its last legs/diff gears and wind up stranded in a mining town in the Outback. Believe me, it’s not pretty.
But everything else is.
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