is this upside down: December 2007

Wednesday morning, I’m free for the next week until the start of a new 3-week work contract, so I start looking for things to do. I looked at the campervan relocation deals, and found one that was quite appealing: Melbourne to Perth, 1$/day for 6 days and 500$ gas covered. So that’s what we’ll be doing for the next week, crossing the country with our fully furnished/running water/stove and fridge Campervan :] classy.

Relocation deals are campervans that are in one city, but need to be relocated to another city to satisfy demand, so there is a set timeframe/itinerary to bring the vehicle to where it’s needed. A road trip that somehow feels like a mission. We are thus charged 1$ a day (rather than a more common 175$+ day!) to rent the vehicle, plus they offered 500$ cash for gas, so we ended up only having to pay an extra 150$ for gas, and our flight back. That turned out to be a wicked good deal, a great chance to see some of the country, and a really cheap road trip! Oh, and driving on the wrong side of the car/road for the first time ever = first 10 min probably ranks itself in the top 5 scariest moments of life, but it surprisingly ends up making sense.

Perth is almost 4000km away from melbourne, but the daunting distance to cover by road between the two cities seemed rather appealing. As expected the drive was a long, so long, quite hypnotic, a huge stretch of straight road that sometimes felt as if you'd already driven it, over and over, but it was an experience. There is a lot of nothingness along the way, you quite often feel as if you are the only one on the road, with nothing and no other soul to be seen for miles - and that was part of the charm. The various quirkiness that are found along the road make for a good stop for exploration and leg stretching. The change that occurs in vegetation along the way is also fascinating and it sometimes felt like we were driving in an entirely different country.

Some 50ish hours of driving later, we got to the other side of the country and we finally got to Perth. Fun facts: Perth is the most isolated city in the world with a population of more than one million (the nearest city to Perth with a population over one million people is Adelaide, which is over 2 000 km away). That’s a lot of isolation, but it's a pretty cool city, but oh so far from everything else.

From Melbourne to the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide to the Nullarbor to some Outback to Perth, look at the pictures to find out a little more about this road trip.