thepinkginpassportGuide to everything you need for an Australian Road Trip. Whether it’s a day trip, like Perth to Jurien Bay, or several days to Esperance this guide goes through what you should bring with you. This doesn’t include tips for super remote areas like the Nullarbor, or camping with a 4×4. These are road trips I’ve done say 8 hours away from home and with a 2 wheel drive car.
Download the area on Google Maps
Australia is a massive country and I have found even an hour away from major cities I lose even Telstra phone service. Before any road trip I download the area on Google Maps so that I can access the map offline. I also save any planned stops and my accommodation so they are easy to find. Driving through the Golden Outback to Esperance, I had no mobile phone reception for 5 hours so this pre-planning came in very handy!
Food and drinks
You can drive for hours in Australia without coming across a shop or petrol station. Even so any cafes/food stores may have limited opening hours compared to the city. For my trip I always had a big bottle of water, crisps, bread and cheese in my Esky bag which came in handy when driving from Hyden to Cape Le Grand as it was a 4.5 hour drive and none of the cafes I had saved on my maps were open. Water is also handy in case you need to cool your engine/wash your windscreen on the hot dusty roads.
Spare tyre, jack and jump leads
While I have full breakdown cover a wide enough range to cover if I had an issue as far as my road trip went, the lack of phone signal means if I did have a problem it would be tricky to call Breakdown Services. Thankfully I never had an issue but still had a spare tyre, jack and some jump leads from Bunnings just in case.
Plan servo stops
Service stations or “servos” will be in pretty much every hamlet/small town but these can be very far apart. My advice would be if you’re tank is at half and you see a petrol station to fill up. I had a slightly close call when one of my planned stops had no petrol left and had another 100km to go before the next town. Also, it’s good to stop to stretch your legs and have little rests when doing such long drives.
Overall I really enjoyed all my road trips in Australia. Being out on the open road you get to see so much more scenery and the drive itself with so much less traffic than home was part of the fun!
