Explorers Way: Alice Springs to Darwin - maui

Six nights and 1,575 kilometres from Alice Springs to Darwin in a campervan, along the Explorers Way from the desert to the tropics.

The route follows John McDouall Stuart, who crossed the continent from south to north and returned in the 1860s, and whose line was used for the overland telegraph and then for the highway. The West MacDonnell Ranges come first, west of Alice, where gorges cut through the range at Simpsons Gap, Standley Chasm and Ormiston, with permanent waterholes at the bottom of several of them.

Tennant Creek follows up the highway, then Daly Waters, whose pub is the sort of outback institution people drive a long way to see, and Katherine, where Nitmiluk is a series of thirteen sandstone gorges cut by the river. Mataranka comes next, with thermal springs running clear through palm forest at a steady thirty-four degrees, then Litchfield National Park, where the waterfalls drop off a sandstone plateau into plunge pools that are safe to swim in, which Kakadu’s are not.

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. Seven days for 1,575 kilometres is a steady pace and the whole route is sealed. The dry season from May to October is the window, since the wet closes tracks and some of the Litchfield pools. Swimming in the Top End needs local advice and the signage read carefully because of the crocodiles, which is what makes Litchfield and Mataranka the places people go. This is a one-way hire, so a relocation fee is worth checking at booking.