3700 KM ACROSS AUSTRALIA
A road trip through coastlines, kangaroos, and the empty heart of a continent.
May 2025,
Over the span of 10 days, we drove 3,700 kilometers of Australia. As uncomfortable travelers, we’ve always believed that the best way to understand a place is to ride through its skin. This land, in all its size and stillness, doesn’t just ask to be admired, it asks to be endured.
We didn’t plan every detail. We just pointed our wheels south from Sydney and decided we’d follow what felt real. We ended up experiencing coastlines so quiet they felt illegal, inland towns so forgotten it was hard to believe people still lived there, and an outback so vast and humbling it made the world feel bigger than it has in years. We stayed in a mix of hotels, motels and Airbnbs. Here’s how it all unfolded.
The Southeast Coast: Beaches, Forests, and Kangaroos on the Sand
We kicked off our trip by heading south from Sydney along the coast, and this part of the road felt like a slow, relaxing intro to Australia. We stayed for two nights in Huskisson, a small beach town near Jervis Bay. The vibe was calm and peaceful. We had early sunsets, quiet walks, and empty beaches entirely to ourselves. Hyams Beach lived up to the hype with its bright white sand, but Pebbly Beach surprised us most, where kangaroos were literally lying on the sand, soaking up the sun like beachgoers. It was one of those weird and unforgettable moments.
We spent our time exploring Booderee National Park, which felt wild and untouched. We walked through quiet forests and found beaches that looked like they came out of a movie. Cave Beach and Murrays Beach were calm, crystal clear, and felt completely remote. These places weren’t just free of tourists , they were literally empty. It was just us, the crashing waves, and a few kangaroos in the distance. No noise, no crowds, just pure, peaceful nature that made us feel like we had the whole coastline to ourselves.
Bairnsdale, Kangaroo Chase, and Ocean Drives
After leaving the coast, we headed toward Bairnsdale, where we stayed with Janosz and Eva, an elderly couple we found through Airbnb. But what we didn’t expect was how quickly they made us feel like family. They shared their stories and and treated us with a kind of warmth you don’t often get from strangers.
The next day, on their recommendation, we took the ferry to Raymond Island, a tiny spot known for koalas. What we didn’t expect was how many there were. They were high up in branches, curled into themselves, sleepy and slow. We weren’t at a zoo. There were no fences. Just nature doing its thing, and us walking through it like respectful visitors. That evening, Janosz insisted on taking us for a drive around town after we mentioned we hadn’t seen any big male kangaroos yet. So off we went, winding through backroads on a mission. And sure enough, we found one, a huge roo standing tall in a field just as the sun was going down. What was meant to be a quick outing turned into a two-hour ride filled with jokes, stories, bits of Aussie politics and economics, and a whole lot of laughter. It felt less like a drive, more like a moving conversation with a new friend who really wanted us to see his country properly.
After that, we continued driving along the coast, slowly making our way to Adelaide. The drive was long but beautiful, with cliffs, forests, and ocean views all packed into one stretch. We even spotted more koalas in the wild, curled up in roadside trees, something we didn’t expect but were happy to catch again.
The Outback
After Adelaide, everything started to feel different. We didn’t want to just loop back along the coast, so we decided to go inland, right through the outback. And that’s when it stopped feeling like a road trip and started feeling like something else. Something quieter. A bit heavier.
The scenery changed fast. The trees thinned out, the land turned red and flat, and the sky suddenly felt endless. We’d drive for hours without seeing a single car, or even a building. No phone signal, no radio, no towns. At one point, we both realized we hadn’t said a word in a while. It was that kind of silence, the kind that gets into your head.
We stopped in Broken Hill, this old mining town that felt half-abandoned, half-frozen in time. We stayed with Gigi, another Airbnb host. She was a retired French woman who had moved there from Sydney for some peace and quiet, and she definitely found it. Her place was small but full of warmth, french books, decorations and inspiring quotes everywhere.
Back on the road, the wildlife changed too. We saw so many kangaroos, but sadly, most of them weren’t alive. Just constant roadkill along the highway. It hit us hard. You start to get how unforgiving this land is. We did spot emus darting across fields like little dinosaurs, eagles picking at what was left, and goats just chilling in the middle of the road like they owned it.
Weirdly, the two creatures we were lowkey expecting to see, snakes and spider, were nowhere to be found. We’d kind of psyched ourselves up for at least one dramatic encounter. But locals told us it was autumn, and most of them were likely tucked away somewhere, sleeping. Turns out we were a little too late for the creepy stuff.
The towns we passed through barely felt like towns, sometimes just a gas station, a single shop, maybe a few houses. Places that looked like people had left a long time ago.
One of the moments that really stuck with us happened near Mount Grenfell National Park. We were heading there to check out some Aboriginal rock art when we noticed a man waving at us from a distance. At first, we hesitated, it’s the outback, and your mind jumps to all sorts of things. But something about him felt genuine, so we stopped. Turns out his car had broken down, dead battery, no phone signal, and his wife and mother were also around, with the sun starting to set. He stayed behind with the car, and we drove the two women to Cobar, the nearest town, so they could get help.
It was a quiet ride, but it really hit us how remote we were. No signal, no one else around. Out there, sometimes you just have to count on a stranger showing up.
Reflections: What Australia Made Us Feel
Australia is massive. This isn’t Europe where countries slide by in a few hours. This is six-hour stretches of road without towns. It’s driving until your body aches and you still haven’t arrived anywhere. It’s silence that lasts longer than you thought possible.
If you had to describe Australia culturally, it’s a blend of three continents.
It has the bones of the U.S., car-centric cities and vast stretches of nothing. The kind of infrastructure built for long distances and private space.
It feels European in how people carry themselves. No tipping. No unnecessary smiling. Public services that work. People who are reserved but real, warm once you get through the initial quiet. There's a practicality to the conversations, a dry sense of humor, and a trust in public infrastructure that felt familiar to us as European residents.
But the energy, especially in the cities, is deeply Asian. Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide pulse with Asian communities, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai. The best meals we had were pho and sushi. Some of the best stores, the liveliest areas, were shaped by immigrant cultures that bring their own rhythm and depth.
One of the best things? It’s affordable. Fuel is cheaper than in Europe, and food isn’t as expensive as we expected. You can travel far without breaking the bank, as long as you don’t mind doing it simply.
But here’s the thing no one warns you about: getting there is hard. A 30-hour journey from Europe doesn’t just tire your body it scrambles your sense of time. You land already floating. But maybe that’s the point. Australia isn’t meant to be easy. It’s meant to be felt. Stretched. Questioned.
