Geelong to Perth road trip. Tips, sights and any other interesting bits welcome.

[schmidty]

Well, over the next 2 days i'm packing up, loading up and getting ready to move from Geelong to Perth.

So far I've pretty much planned my days as follows.
Day 1, Geelong to Kimba
Day 2, Kimba to Cocklebiddy
Day 3, Cocklebiddy to Perth.

Works out to be pretty much 1150 - 1250km each day.

Just wondering if any that have done the trip before have got any pointers for me in regards to weather my chosen places to end the days are decent and even what's some good places to stop and things to see along the way? Drive 180 - 200,000km per year but most of it is in a truck.

I'm taking my BA XR6 ute over with my big tandem, and 4wd loaded up and dragging my builders trailer. Going to be dragging a fair load of gear over so i've been right through both vehicles and trailers. Done oil & filters, air filters, fuel filters, spark plugs, coolant, gear box oils, diff oils, new wheel bearings in 4wd, new wheel bearings and brakes in trailers, tyres all spot A1, wheel alignments, wheels balanced, got a spare set of wheels for ute on board and 2 sets for 4wd, hopefully that'll all get me there.

Not looking forward to the fuel bill!

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Cheers
Schmidty

[xr8chick]

My family and I did the Cairns to Perth trip in 2006. We took 12 days to get over and treated it as a holiday at the same time.

We drove our BA xr6 sedan over and it cost us just under $1000 in fuel.

An idea we got off a few friends of ours that have done trips like that are to buy a notebook and write down what you did each day, how far you travelled and where you fuelled up and how much it cost you.

We travelled through (and stayed at);
Cairns - Townsville
T-ville - Gin Gin
Gin Gin - The Gold Coast
TGC - Griffith
Griffith - Barossa Valley
Barossa Valley - Perth.

Hope you have fun on your trip, take lots of pics, cause you won't want to be driving that long for a while again!

[XR6_661]

I've done from Adelaide to Cairns in a 4WD....Went straight through the middle of SA, to broken hill, through NSW to QLD.

Was a painful trip through SA.....what felt like 100km long straights with literally nothing. No hills, no animals, no fences. The occasional car. If you want an interesting trip, don't go this way haha.

About the only exciting thing that happened was we hit a big roo.

[mcnews]

I think from memory Kimba and Cocklebiddy are pretty much nothing but service stations.... Personally I would probably stop at the Penong Pub which is quite habitable and then probably Norseman.

[tempest]

While going through SA - Avoid a placed called Port Pirie - even for a toilet break!!

[Bucket]

Let us know when you're here, we'll escort you into God's City ;)

[RJO89]

Originally Posted by tempest

While going through SA - Avoid a placed called Port Pirie - even for a toilet break!!

I resent that. I was born there!!!!!

[1970galaxie]

Like mentioned above, I wouldn't worry about Kimba and Cocklebiddy.
If you get the chance, sleep in the car at one of the viewing points at the Nullabor cliffs.
Couldn't think of much of a better place than that to wake up to.

[scoupedy]

ARh not much it see, check out the cliffs on the nullabor, could go the long way and see Kalgoorlie, pink lake in SA on the way.
spot dead kangaroos on Nullabor, gez i'm bored just thinking of it.