Route planning
In Australia the route planning certainly is more simple than in denser settled parts of the world, since there are not so many streets and thus not so many possibilities.We don't want to give here any recommendations about route planning. We just want to tell you after which aspects we decided, because every planning is dependent on which expectations someone has about a trip and how much time and budget is available for the journey.
The Climate
We got an overview about the continent through the internet (you can make this on our side now). Especially when you drive the bike, you should note that because of the size of the continent there are different climates existing. Actually that is great, because thus there is always a good region for biking - as long as you are in time at the correct place. For this reason our starting point (middle of august) was in Darwin and we decided to go west first. Our decision proved to be the best for us.The Wind
What cyclists still should consider during the planning, is the wind direction, because the sea breeze (in Austria we call this a storm) made cycling much harder for us and other bikers who had to fight against it. We met some bikers which already had been in many continents with their bikes and they told us that they never had so strong winds for so long time yet.
Martin demonstrates the strength of the sea breeze with our tarpaulin
For trips around the continent headwind and tailwind probably balances themself, although I believe that it is simpler to have headwind in the east than in the west, because in this area you don't have so much luggage (settled dense, water everywhere). In spite of that we were glad about our decision (we had headwind in the west), because so we had the hardest part at the beginning of the journey. But if you only ride sections and make good plans, you maybe can always cycle with the wind !!
The main wind direction usually is southeast and mostly the wind is much weaker at the morning, at the evening and during the night - often it is even calm then (so start early in the morning and make long lunch breaks). Of course since the wind is different according to season and area, here you can find more precise wind maps.
Decision on the route
We in fact did not fix our travel route, although we already planed before to travel around the continent maybe. However, since we never made a bike tour of several days' duration before, we didn't know exactly, whether we really like it. In addition we didn't have any clue how fast we would be. Hence our first goal was to go from Darwin to Perth.We had a guide book with us and in addition we used the really good material of the local tourism information agencies to find out more about a specific region. Thus we knew about the typical touristic sights and made short excursions just as the mood took us, although these were not important for us. We felt the country between at least as beautiful, even though many characterise it as bald and boring. In our tour reports we give an overview of the highlights of our trips.
Map material
We just bought an Australia Handy Atlas from Hema Maps, which was completely sufficient in combination with the free maps we got at the tourist informations. It must be pointed out that on Australian maps many places which would represent cities on Austrian maps, are just farms or gas stations or even uninhabited. So if you are not sure, if the name on the map is a city or not, ask at the actual place before leaving without enough water!
Instead of the expected city once again only a gas station - and what a great one!