Travelling Australia by Campervan

By Arthur, University of Manchester, UK.

One of the many unforgettable parts of my exchange year was a campervan trip up the east coast of Australia with my school friends. After not seeing them for half a year, they both decided to spend their hard earnt money on a once-in-a-lifetime adventure through Australia’s most popular coast. It was experiences like this that made any small drawback of the year feel completely insignificant.

My friend Lucas flew out a week ahead of Louis, giving me the chance to show him what Melbourne had to offer before we had found our vehicle for the journey. Renting it was surprisingly easy- a simple online booking alongside an international driving license gave us the freedom to choose from any van we wanted. We inevitably decided on the cheaper option, which offered us a compact but surprisingly comfortable campervan. It had just enough space for the three of us to sleep and cook simple meals, which was everything we needed for our road trip.

After a brilliant reunion at the airport with Louis, we finally had the whole crew together and were ready to set up. From Melbourne, our plan was ambitious- drive all the way up the east coast to Cairns in just three and a half weeks, exploring as much of the coast as we could along the way. We left with the aim of reaching Sydney by Christmas and started our 12-hour journey out of Victoria.

After a long first night on the road, we quickly settled into life in the van. Every morning we woke up somewhere new, often staying in coastal campsites overlooking the pacific ocean. We would spend our days crawling up Australia’s eastern shoreline finding quiet beaches or forest lay-bys to explore, whilst doing the occasional failed surf or hike. Spending Christmas in Sydney was one of the highlights of the trip- we decorated the van with tacky tinsel and listened to terrible festive music on our drive through the blue mountains into the historic city. Spending the day on Bondi Beach was surreal, and although it couldn’t have been more different than a typical British Christmas, it was an unbelievable day. New Year’s was spent north of Sydney at a lively festival where we camped in our van with another group of my friends I had met in Melbourne. I felt very grateful to bring in the new year with such a great group of people!

Queensland bought new challenges, with the intense heat and inevitable humidity in the van making it difficult to sleep at night. The long, quiet stretches gave us time to take in the vast Australian landscape whilst ogling at the complete lack of life that seemed to surround us. By the time we reached Cairns, the van looked a little worse for wear- as did we! But there was a big sense of achievement in completing such a long journey together. Saying goodbye to the van and my friends was bittersweet but made much easier by the fact that we could look back on an unbelievable few weeks.