A taste of Explorer's Way - Britz

Thirteen nights and 4,566 kilometres from Adelaide to Darwin in a campervan, up the Stuart Highway on the line of the old overland telegraph.

Clare and Port Augusta come first, then Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges, a natural basin of folded rock with a single narrow entrance, and Parachilna, where the pub serves native game and has done for decades. William Creek follows on the Oodnadatta Track, with flights out over Lake Eyre.

Coober Pedy comes next, where much of the town lives underground to escape the heat, then Uluru, Kings Canyon and Alice Springs in the centre. Tennant Creek, Daly Waters and Katherine carry the route north, with Nitmiluk and its gorges at Katherine, and Litchfield before Darwin.

Britz supply the camper and the day-by-day plan, 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. Fourteen days for 4,566 kilometres means long days on a highway with road trains on it, and the detours to Wilpena and William Creek add unsealed sections to an otherwise bitumen route. This is a one-way hire, so a relocation fee is worth checking at booking. The telegraph line the route follows was completed in 1872 and cut Australia’s communication time with London from months to hours. Fourteen days is enough to cross the country without rushing every stop, and the route changes character completely three or four times, from vineyard to desert to tropical wetland.