Route planning: 3 Months (March to May)

[Ela]

Hello

Between March and May next year I will have nearly 3 months’ time for travelling and intend to plan a tour in Australia – for route planning I would really appreciate your advice.

I have travelled for one year around Australia in 2006 alsong the following route: Sydney – Melbourne (mostly along the coast) – Adelaide – Flinders Ranges – Oodnadatta track – Darwin – Gibb River Road – Broome – Tom Price – Perth – Melbourne – Tasmania), and did two more shorter trips afterwards (Mindabiddi Trail until Nannup, Tasmania).

You see, I already know a bit of Australia, but I still currently feel very unsure what I should do with this 3 months!!!!

My first idea was to cycle the Mundabiddi Trail, as I loved that trail, and when I rode it years ago, it was not yet completed. However, in 3 months I would have time to continue to Esperance and then for example head up north, e.g. to Kalbarry and then along the coast back to Perth. However, I don’t know how nice it would be to travel north inland at this time of the year (no wildflowers) and I would have trouble to decide whether to take my touring bike or my bikepacking bike.

Another idea was to do the Mundabiddi, get to Adelaide somehow (plane, train, car or whatever) and then head up north from Adelaide to Alice on a similar route I did in 2006 (Flinders Ranges – Oodnadatta track). A quite tempting idea as it would offer forests and deserts but this option sounded a bit too stressful for me with the section of inland transfer and it would feel less stressful, not to have a date in between I need to catch a plain and to pack my bike up in a box.

Therefore, I had the idea to do Melbourne – Adelaide – Darwin, which would also quite suite the time of the year. However, I am very unsure how much enjoyable it would be for me to cycle many kilometers on highways, especially as traffic has been bothering me more and more as older

Queensland was never an option because I think, that it could be too crowded for my and with lots of sections on roads – but maybe I am wrong.

The Australian Alps also seem quite tempting for me and I haven’t been there before, but that would be even harder to combine up to a three-month trip at this time of the year…

I would appreciate your ideas and suggestions!

Kind Regards

Ela

[baabaa]

Sound like you know Aust better than most of us here - 2006 was not so long ago but all things biking have changed and maybe not so much in a good way.
Even as a local who has done a fair bit of bike touring in the past, I find this blog as a bit of a bible - should find some of the info you want in his pages on Aust

https://bike-a-way.com/

and https://bike-a-way.com/tag/australia/

Come back at us will more questions once you fine tune some of the places you think would work in regard to your timeframe - sure we can help in some ways

[elantra]

https://bike-a-way.com/

and https://bike-a-way.com/tag/australia/

Those are fantastic travel resources, thanks for posting.

Here’s a fascinating and informative blog from 2023 - this year! :
https://wanderingwyatt135121267.wordpre ... australia/

Very fascinating.
After reading much of it I do get the overall impression that she found riding up the East Coast and to the Northern Territory more manageable than the rest of her 10,000 km plus journey.
She used quiet roads, Railtrails, gravel roads as much as possible.