Around Australia: High-level Plan

So, what are we talking about? Well, a general trip around Australia, excluding Tasmania, will need some 15,000 km to be travelled and takes 15 days if you are after the ride only, 20 days if you want to see at least a little bit, 30 days for a bit of sight-seeing and breaks (0 km riding days); 45 days for a good mix of great daily riding and taking in some of the wonders in more detail, or any number of days as you see fit.  I know some folks who took a year or even longer.

Around Australia: General Map for a trip covering 15,000 km (1st rough Plan.)

At present (early December 2009) my trip around Australia, excluding Tasmania, is some 22,000 km long and I have got 40 days to do it. To get to this stage, which is just understanding the outline of the trip, took me some 20 hours of thinking and planning. This excludes the preparations for the bike, which I cover elsewhere.

My first step — closely related to how I think — was getting a big picture view on where I wanted to go; a high-level perspective, hence, I bought a single-sheet map of Australia and hung it up the wall. I then used my GPS software, (CoPilot 6) running on my PC, to plot one section after the other, starting in Brisbane, going anti-clockwise all the way around, back to Brisbane. The trip boundaries were chosen at random and have no relation to start or finish on any particular day or at any particular location. It is just easier to work with smaller sections and to add and or reschuffle localities as required.

Planning for the bike and desired accessories started a few month earlier. The worst thing to do prior to long distance rides is making chances to the bikes configuration, e.g. adding accessories, routing of electrical cables, etc. You can bet on it that something will fail during the trip, because it has not been tested long enough. ( Here someones experience someone else had on the first day of a trip. The same post describes a nice trip around Australia too.) Once I have my bike configured the way I want, which is planned to be finished by the end of January, I will go for a quick 2,000 km or so just to check out the configuration, more so to get used to its operation or intricacies, and also giving myself ample time to make necessary fixes or changes, and/or get any required parts if required.

This is the planned route as per early December 2009.

Visitor's Comments

Sorry, there are currently no moderated / approved entries for this page.
Start the ball rolling by posting a comment on this article!