February to November 2018

We quickly concluded that the best way for us to Go Around was anti-clockwise. Leave Sydney in Feb/ March 2018, get to North Queensland in about May, cross the top in the dry, and get to the Western Australian wildflowers in August/Sept. Simple really.

We also decided that the best way for us was to tow a caravan. For a 12 month or more trip, a camper trailer would be too much of a compromise. Motor homes have limitations re storage and having to set up each night with no other transport. We did not really think of 5th wheelers at that time. Details of our tow vehicle (The Cruiser) and van (Mobi), and the problems caused by their impetuous purchases, are at Preparation.

We decided to leave most of NSW and southern Queensland for another time. We can easily get to these places any time in the future. 

We also agreed that, as we had spent about a month in the Northern Territory in early 2017, we would not go back to all of those wonderful places on this round. 

When we started to look at places to go and some of the great tour options that are available, we quickly realised that northern Australia in the dry season is big business and extremely busy. We particularly wanted to do a cruise along the Kimberley coast to see the Horizontal Falls, the headlands, the waterfalls, etc. but were surprised to find that many of the 2018 cruises were already booked out. So we had to select a cruise, and more importantly a date, which obviously committed us to be in Broome on a particular day a year from then. And pay a large deposit to secure the cruise. 

So after looking at loads of websites and other people’s blogs, we set out an overall plan that would take in the main highlights – the places that the web sites are telling us we have to get to – balanced with enough lazy days when we can sit all day and read a book if we want to.  We came up with the following.

March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November	December
Southern Queensland	North Queensland	North central Queensland, Northern Territory	Northern Territory	Northern Territory and the Kimberlys	Kimberlys and northern WA	Mid WA	South West WA	South East WA, western SA
Carnarvon NP	Paluma NP	Undara	Limmen NP	Kununurra	7 day Cruise	Kalbarri	Fremantle	Bremer Bay
Emerald	Ingham	Mt Surprise	Lorella Springs	Pumululu NP	Broome	Geraldton	Wellington NP	Esperance
Angus Water & 1770	Cardwell	Cobbold Gorge	Mataranka	Fitzroy Crossing	Eighty Mile Beach	Jurien Bay	Margaret River	Cape Arid NP
Cania Gorge NP	Mission Beach	Georgetown	Katherine	Derby	Karijini NP	Moora	Bridgetown	Nullabor Crossing
Yepoon	Innisfail	Normanton		Windjana/Silent Grove	Exmouth	Moore River NP	Pemberton	Streaky Bay
Eungella	Millaa Millaa	Burketown	Katherine	Mt Elizabeth	Coral Bay	Fremantle	Walpole
Airlie Beach	Atherton	Adels Grove	Victoria River	Mitchell Falls	Kennedy Range NP		Denmark	Nothing planned from here
	Goldsborough	Cloncurry	Timber Creek	El Questro	Canarvon		Sterling Range NP
	Cairnes	Mount Isa	Kununurra	Kununurra	Denham		Albany
	Port Douglas	Tennant Ck		Duncan Rd
	Cape Tribulation	Daley Waters		Halls Creek
	Cooktown	Mataranka		Derby
	Port Douglas			Broome

 

The aeroplane represents a quick trip home to see family and friends.

That was our pre-departure plan. We fully expected that we may not get to all of the places, that new things will excite us and divert us, and others will drop off; or that we need more quiet time. Who knows, but we have a hell of a good target so far.

We had not planned anything for when we get to around the western parts of South Australia. We were a bit concerned about going through southern SA and Victoria in Dec/Jan/Feb – hot, hot, hot.  While we thought we may push on if the weather is kind, we also could head home for a few months.  🙂

We also needed to consider the weather and how that would change as we went around. So we picked some representative stations for each month and looked at their mean monthly data.

Mean values	March	April	May	June	July	August	September	October	November
	Yepoon	Innisfail	Georgetown	Katherine	Kununurra	Broome	Geraldton	Margaret River	Esperance
Max Temp	28.4	28.3	30.4	29.9	30.3	30.3	22.1	19.6	23.2
Min Temp	22.5	20.5	16.1	14.0	15.0	14.9	9.3	9.3	12.8
Rain - mm	133	405	9.3	1.9	3.9	2.2	32.0	61.9	34.0
# rain days	9.8	16.8	0.8	0.2	0.2	0.3	6.3	9.8	5.3
		Port Douglas			Broome	Carnarvon	Fremantle	Albany	Streaky Bay
Max Temp		28.3			28.9	23.1	18.5	18.5	25.6
Min Temp		21.5			13.7	11.6	11.0	10.5	13.3
Rain - mm		202.1			6.8	17.5	69.2	78.7	18.6
# rain days		11.3			0.5	3.0	5.9	9.6	3.2

From this table the only real concern appears to be the relatively high rainfall in April in northern coastal Queensland – 17 mean rain days at Innisfail and over 11 in Port Douglas. But everything else looks pretty good. Good to go!

The details of our actual travels can be found here.

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February/March/April 2019

Broadly, we departed in early to mid February and drove south to the Victorian coast – Lakes Entrance, Yarram, Wilsons Promontory and Phillip Island. Then we criss-crossed inland Victoria before returning to the coast at Portland and working our way into South Australia – Mount Gambier, Robe, Victor Harbour, followed by Kangaroo Island and then Adelaide. We toured the wine regions before heading up to the Flinders Ranges, onto the Murray River, then the Victorian High country.

February	March	April	May
Cooma	Macedon	Kangaroo Island
Lakes Entrance	Bendigo	Adelaide
Traralgon	St Arnaud	Marion Bay
Wilsons Promontory	Halls Gap	Flinders Ranges NP
Phillip Island	Return to Sydney for wedding	Wentworth
Colac	Halls Gap	Echuca
Ballarat	Portland	Wangaratta
	Mount Gambier	Bright
	Robe
	Victor Harbor

The details of our actual travels can be found here.

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October 2019

We toured Tasmania from 05 October to 03 Nov. We started in the north – we had accomodation at Devonport for a week and tried to see as much of the north as possible – Cradle Mountain, the north west coast, the Gt Western Tiers, Tamar Valley and more. We then drove down the eastern Coast – St Helens, Coles Bay, Orford –  to Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula, before getting to Hobart. Following on from that we went to Bruny Island then up into central Tasmania – Mount Field NP, Hamilton, Lake St Clair. Then we went to the western wilderness of Queenstown and Strahan, before returning to Launceston and our return flight. 

The details of our actual travels can be found here.

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