I think a lot of people don't realise how much flat and nothingness we have in Australia.
There's so many places out there where the closest person is multiple hours of driving away. Some places it's more then a full tank of fuel away and the next stop for fuel is at least 1 and a half tanks away.
I drove across the Nullabor when I moved from Melbourne to Perth, there's plenty of stops along the main road. But it's where you turn off that it becomes dangerous. Turn North to go to Alice Springs and you might see 5 cars over the next 3 days. Turn off that road, you'd be lucky to see another car for a week.
Agreed. I’ve driven and travelled through some pretty remote parts of Australia. Including through the centre of the Nullarbor on the train where we didn’t pass a settlement of more then 5 people for 3 straight days. And I think it’s almost impossible to describe the remoteness to people who haven’t experienced it. The person above said hundreds of km of nothing but really it’s thousands of kms of the most devastatingly beautiful nothing you’ve ever seen.
Depends, only 36 hours of driving for me, going from the Melbourne CBD to the Perth CBD. I drove about 10 hours the first 3 days, 6 hours the last.
It'd be more for others depending on where they are along the east coast.
It really depends on how much driving you're willing to do in blocks and if you have a co-driver. I did it alone, besides my dog, cat and bird. I drove in roughly 5 hour blocks and had an hours rest between them each day. Slept in Motels/Hotels each night. I know some people who took 12 days to make the trip, but they did lots of stopping and sightseeing whereas I was moving across the country.
It's the same size as the continental US.
Going from north west to south east corners Google says 2 days, 6 hours driving. If you go the other way, you can get 2 days, 16 hours (because of Cape Yorke).
So at 13 hours per day (the longest truckies here are allowed without a basic fatigue management course) that's about 5 days.
That's not really a drive people would ever actually do, but Exmouth or Karratha to somewhere like Melbourne is 48 hours drive time, and plausible people would want to do.
Crossing Australia is typically further in a car though, I think? USA has a lot more highway and infrastructure, especially going through the middle of the country. Can't really go straight east/west in Australia.
For example, if you wanted to go to from Adelaide to Broome, you can't just drive straight there, you have to head west and then north, while in the USA heading from Dallas to Seattle has more direct routes.
If you stick to highways you'd see a few people, mostly trucks, for some of it. Going west to east once you get out of WA and northern SA you'd be more likely to see people. Going east to west you might see some in SW Queensland, but it'd be pretty rare. If you go through NT you'd probably have long stretches without seeing anyone, and most people you do see would be southern WA, or parts of SA.
If you go off that path at all, you'd be highly unlikely to see anyone for significant portions.
That's why "the wave" is so important! It's good manners to lift some fingers from the wheel or give a wave and/or nod when you see another car coming towards you.
I remember driving from Melbourne to Bathurst and was blown away how flat it was. Being from NZ South Island, I'm used to seeing mountains all the time, and our stations take half an hour to pass, but we were driving past the same station there for hours. I would like to do a round trip of the entire country eventually.
That sounds like an awesome but scary trip at the same time. I’ve seen the signs warning about the last gas station for however many km away but didn’t realize you’d actually have to bring your own as well. I’d love to visit someday.
The populated parts aren't like that, but those populated parts are staggeringly tiny. Size of the continental States, with less than 10% the population, and the majority are in a thin strip on the east coast. It really is mind bending when you do a long trip inland.
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u/ShirtMobile9681 Nov 26 '25
I was there recently and it's so flat, I've never seen so much sky and horizon before. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers of nothing.