Melbourne to Uluru via the Clare Valley and Coober Pedy - Mighty

Eleven nights and 2,372 kilometres from Melbourne to Uluru in a campervan, out through the Victorian goldfields and up the Stuart Highway.

Ballarat comes first, where the 1850s gold rush built a city of wide streets and ornate buildings and the Eureka rebellion took place, then Horsham on the Wimmera plains and Bordertown over the South Australian line.

Adelaide follows, then Port Wakefield and the Clare Valley, the riesling country of Australia, where the cellar doors sit along an old railway formation now used as a cycle path. Port Pirie and Port Augusta come next at the head of the gulf, where the farmland gives out, then Coober Pedy, producing most of the world’s opal, where much of the population lives underground in dugouts, and the Erldunda roadhouse before Yulara and Uluru.

The camper and the day-by-day plan come from Mighty, and the hire is priced live per vehicle rather than per person; campsites, fuel, ferries, park fees and activities are all extra, with a nil-excess insurance pack available at booking. Twelve days for 2,372 kilometres is a fair pace with two long highway days at the end. Winter is the season for the inland half, since summer in the centre is punishing and the walks close in the heat of the day. The Uluru climb is closed and the ten-kilometre base walk is the better way round it. Fuel should be taken at every roadhouse north of Port Augusta. This is a one-way hire of some length, so a relocation fee is worth confirming at booking.