Adelaide to Perth across the Nullarbor - maui

Eight nights and 3,551 kilometres from Adelaide to Perth in a campervan, across the Nullarbor between two state capitals.

Port Augusta and Port Lincoln come first on the Eyre Peninsula, where the oyster farms sit in the bays and the tuna boats work out of the harbour, then Ceduna, which is the last substantial town before the plain.

Eucla and Norseman carry the crossing, and the leg between them runs 709 kilometres in a single day, which is the heart of the trip. The Nullarbor is not a sand desert but a limestone plain, treeless as its name says, with the longest straight stretch of sealed road in Australia across it and the Bunda Cliffs dropping into the Southern Ocean along its southern edge. Esperance follows, with its white beaches, then Albany on the south coast, and Margaret River before Perth.

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. Nine days for 3,551 kilometres is a hard schedule, and the Nullarbor section is the part to plan rather than improvise: fuel stops are a couple of hundred kilometres apart, roadhouse prices are what they are, and water should be carried. Driving at dawn, dusk and after dark is where the risk lies, since kangaroos, emus and camels all use the road. Southern right whales calve at the Head of Bight between June and October. This is a one-way hire the width of the continent, so a relocation fee is worth confirming at booking.