A three week tour
Friday, March 4th, 2011 at 11:48am
This time tomorrow, Damien and I should be heading in a westerly direction out of Melbourne. The first day of a three week / 8,000km plus road trip from Melbourne to Perth and back.
Not much about the trip is set in stone as we don’t know how long we will stop (if at all) at various places. To reflect this we have lists of motels, caravan parks and campsites, but very few actual bookings. If needed we will call ahead a few days in advance, but that is all.
One thing that (some) people seem surprised about is that we will only be spending a single day in Perth. Yes, one day out of three weeks and that is a rest day to catch up on things like washing clothes (there are other rest days as well). This is a road trip, so it is about the journey, not about the destination, Perth is just one of the stops. Driving across Australia is not something you do often, you can always fly over to Perth later.
The last few weeks have been busy with final planning which should all come together tonight with the final pack of the car. But I thought I should mention the technology that we are considering essential:
- Three still cameras (SLR, compact and a bridge)
- One HD video camera (mounted to the windscreen..)
- Three (maybe four) phones (one of mine, the others Damiens)
- GPS unit (in addition to one in the phones)
- UHF radios
- Two laptops
- Telstra internet dongle
- External drives for backup
- Batteries and chargers
I will try to keep identica/twitter/facebook updated, and maybe throw in a blog post or two. But we know that there is zero mobile coverage across the desert (on the train line yes, but not down at the highway) so it will become quiet on the Ceduna to Esperance and Norseman to Ceduna sections.
If nothing else, I expect to be back in three weeks with lots of photos, hopefully some of them good.
