Adelaide to Darwin via Uluru - maui

Nine nights and 3,538 kilometres from Adelaide to Darwin in a campervan, straight up the middle of the continent.

Port Augusta comes first at the head of Spencer Gulf, where the farmland gives out and the arid country begins, then Coober Pedy, which produces most of the world’s opal and where a good part of the population lives underground in dugouts to escape the heat, with a church, a hotel and a bookshop among the rooms cut into the rock.

Uluru follows, a sandstone monolith standing 348 metres above the surrounding plain and continuing a long way beneath it, sacred to the Anangu and best seen at either end of the day when the colour shifts. Alice Springs comes next in the MacDonnell Ranges, then the Stuart Highway north through Tennant Creek and Daly Waters, and Katherine, where Nitmiluk is a series of thirteen sandstone gorges cut by the river, before the run into Darwin.

The camper and the day-by-day plan come from maui, 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. Ten days for 3,538 kilometres means long days at the wheel, and Uluru is a detour of some 450 kilometres each way off the highway, which is worth knowing when planning the schedule. The climb is closed, and the base walk of ten kilometres is the better way round it. Winter is the season for the centre, since summer temperatures there are punishing. Fuel stops are far apart on the Stuart Highway and road trains need room and respect. This is a one-way hire the length of the country, so a relocation fee is worth confirming at booking.