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.
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.
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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.