Planning the 18,000 km "around the block" trip of
Ron and Wendy Holland and Denis and Pam McGurgan


As you can gather we spent many hours preparing for our "big trip".  I guess I spent time over 
a period of almost three years gleaning information, gathering comments either first hand 
from other travellers, reading every caravan mag I could and collating information and 
clippings until we had an enormous amount of disjointed pieces.  The four of us then sat down 
over a beer and listed all the places that each of us thought we might have an interest in.  
Once we had this we dragged out the map and jotted down an initial route.  This started me 
off on the spreadsheet (Ron has a spreadsheet he maintained of fuel, costs, distances, etc 
Ed).

We started by saying we didn't want to spend the entire trip looking at white lines or potholes 
so we set down some criteria:

1.	Our prime objective was to see the Kimberley

2.	Try to average no more than 150 km a day at an arbitrary 70 kph or say just over two 
hours over the entire journey.  In reality this meant that if we travelled for eight hours on 
any one-day then we would stop for 3 days in the one place to make up for the excess 
travel.  This proved to be a reasonable guide although we finally averaged about 190 
km/day for the entire trip including side/daytrips (but just 130 km/day with the van in tow).  
In many of the more remote areas there is really nothing to do but keep on trucking, eg 
Broome to Port Hedland where the country is mile after mile of mallee type scrub, dead 
kangas and horses, interspersed with salt bush.  This plan of attack enabled us to 
calculate approximately how long we needed to complete the trip and thereby plan our 
leave accordingly.  Our friends had over eighteen weeks to spare whilst I had just on 
fourteen weeks.  This time frame meant that we really didn't see enough time to include 
Darwin or south of Perth.  As we plan to go to Darwin via the Gulf in the future we didn't 
have any problem with this approach (our friends had been there previously) and we felt 
that as it would be too cold south of Perth in August we would do that in a couple more 
years and include the South Australian peninsulas in an eight week trip in warmer 
weather.

3.	With this mind set we then started to obtain up to date maps, area activities and things to 
see from all the major tourist information centres along the route.  This involved writing to 
them, faxes, emails, or gathering info from the net.  WA Tourism has an excellent site 
that lead to WA Roads and all the local info bureaus.  Over the months we gained a 
pretty good idea of what was there to explore and what interested us as a group.  Further 
information gathering at the various Caravan Shows in Melbourne armed us with a huge 
information source.  I purchased a number of books/maps from the Melbourne Map 
Centre in 738-740 Waverley Road, Chadstone.  Ron & Viv Moon's books on the 
Kimberley were invaluable and provided a vast amount of information and directions.  I 
then called on resources from workmates in our SA/WA offices and obtained all the RAA 
touring maps I could - these proved extremely useful in conjunction with the localized 
information centre area booklets.

4.	Gradually we refined the "plan of attack" and a base plan eventuated on our spreadsheet 
and so the calculation commenced.  We assumed a base of 5 km/litre of fuel at an 
average of $1 litre (fuel was then a miserable 70c/litre in Melbourne and LPG just 20-
25c/litre - oh how that's changed!).  We then said parks would cost us say $20/night and 
we would spend say $50 per head per day on everything (meals, entertainment, grog, 
tours, entry fees etc).  This meant we would need to budget say $2,500 for fuel, $2,000 
for accommodation and say $10,000 for the rest.  We felt that if we could not afford this 
then there wasn't much point in going until we could.  When we started our planning I still 
had two kids at university costing us well over  $20,000 a year so the budget was a real 
consideration.

5.	Once we saw this barrier was overcome then it was down to the real thing.  Set the dates 
and let's go.  My mate's wife is Don of a local nursing home so time off was a problem for 
a while due to extensive new accreditation rules - once settled we then looked at what 
was on and collectively decided to leave no later than the end of May which put us about 
two weeks ahead of "the pack".  It proved a wise decision as we had very little trouble 
with sites anywhere except Broome.  We did not want to book ahead any more than say 
a week, as this would have created too many time restraints.  The spreadsheet enabled 
us to gain a rough idea of where we might be at a given date if we stuck to the plan.  It 
enabled us to make forward decisions as to when we could extend a stay or 
shorten/eliminate a stay.  Through a combination of research of what we wanted to see 
and calculating roughly how long it might take we were able to set out a plan that proved 
to be fairly close to the mark.  Most importantly though we did not let it override the day-
to-day decisions of what/where we would go - that would be crazy and result in missing 
many exciting places.  If time is not a restriction then you really don't need it other than to 
log the places that are of interest.  Before we left I felt my time frame was more than 
adequate and largely this was true.  The only thing I did not think about was just how far 
away from home we were time wise.  To go back to Darwin or Perth again now means 
we will retrace the same ground for about a month - in retrospect it may have been a 
better thing to have allowed the extra time and covered these places.  Derby and the 
Gibb River Road were wonderful places but it's almost 6,500 km and two months before 
you start to reach the dirt roads.  Due to the abnormal wet the previous year we could not 
get into a number of places and roads to Mitchell Falls, Bells Gorge and Kalumbaru were 
still closed when we arrived so it looks like we'll have to backtrack at some stage in the 
future.

6.	The 'bush telegraph" also proved to be a real source of information and sometimes 
misinformation.  Superb places like Shothole Canyon and Turquoise Beach don't appear 
on the local tourist brochures but are simply not to be missed.  We would not have spent 
so much time at Exmouth had we relied on brochures.  We learnt of them at 80 mile 
Beach.  On other occasions we were told this place or that was marvellous e.g. 
Millstream NP near (?) Karratha- it proved to be pretty ordinary.  But one man's castle is 
another man's chook house!

Over the years we have planned our trips in a similar manner but not let the plan over-ride the 
enjoyment.  We have travelled together throughout Victoria and along the east coast as far as 
Brisbane, usually choosing somewhere as a base then fanning out from there to see 
everything we could.  It took us fifteen years to get north of Sydney with repeated trips to 
Merimbula, Bateman's Bay, Nowra, Kiama, and Shoalhaven Heads all causing lengthy delays 
each year.

In recent years our holidays have changed to more a nomadic style.  Partly because we no 
longer have the kids to contend with and partly because time has not been such a constraint.  
Now we tend to be a bit more feral (more bush camping) and have become a bit more 
aboriginal in our stays - we are always on the move, a bit of hunting (mainly fish) and lots of 
gathering (mainly rubbish but girls will be girls!).  If we like a place we stay until we have run 
out of interest then move on for an hour or two and repeat the process.

My trip summary evolved over recent months because a couple of my long time workmates 
are about to retire and asked me for details of our trip so that they might use these in a simple 
trip later this year.  I had scanned a number of photos for posterity and one thing led to 
another and now I'm getting quite a few requests for copies - perhaps I'd better get into the 
publishing business!  The main thing is that others can get some help in planning their trip.  It 
was only by accident that I discovered The Australian Caravan Park Reports web site recently 
that prompted me to contact the Webmaster with the info - the web site is a great information 
base for fellow travellers and I wish I had known of it when we started planning our stays -
"live" descriptions of the various parks often prove more accurate than the "rated" opinions in 
the various Big 4/Top Tourist type publications - and they don't have many of the out of the 
way spots.

Another thing worth mentioning is communications - mobile phones might be ok in the big 
centres but our OPTUS/VODAPHONE system were as useless as an ashtray on a motor bike 
- a carrier pigeon is more reliable.  Our friends had a TELSTRA pre-paid which seemed to be 
ok close to most of the more remote roadhouses.  Phone cards were often unusable on those 
yellow or orange pay phones in many parks.  We used email via the free Hotmail address and 
the local library in most towns - worked well with sometimes a small fee for the time or a need 
to book a time for use.

I trust this gives you an insight into the work behind the summary and I hope this can help 
others "on the wallaby".

Cheers
Ron Holland