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6 months - half lap - when to go? 6 months - half lap - when to go?
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Photo by Helmut Koch,
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Yukon, Canada



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  #1  
Old 28 Mar 2021
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6 months - half lap - when to go?
All, apologies as kind of this question has been asked many times before, but I can’t really find a detailed informative response to the question I have. Hopefully the HUBB army can help me sort it out.

We plan on doing a 6 months trip by car around early 2022. Although we could be flexible (but this might depend on where we can buy a 4x4), I reasonably expect to start in Sydney (or Melbourne). High level plan:

(Melbourne -) Sydney - Brisbane - Cairns - Cape York - Darwin - Gibb River Road - Alice Springs - Adelaide - Melbourne (- Sydney). OR: CLOCKWISE?

A preferred must is to have nice warm weather all the way ☀️ . We don’t mind heat
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Old 29 Mar 2021
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The main thing to keep in mind is that the north part of Australia has distinct "wet" and "dry" seasons - the "wet" is roughly November to April, and much of the accommodation and roads in the Kimberly will be closed or inaccessible. Cairns and Darwin are also affected by the "wet".

The interior (Alice springs, etc) is *really* hot in December/January - 40+.

Sounds like a great trip!
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Old 29 Mar 2021
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I did that same counter-clockwise loop in September 1996 over about 4 weeks on a motorcycle. The weather was generally good - not too hot, not too cold - though I did run into about 3 days of rain on the southeast coast towards the last week of September.

In September, I found the night temps in the interior could drop to within a few degrees of freezing, yet the highs were well into the 30s by mid-afternoon. Temps on the coast tended to be more mild then.

I'm a bit jealous. With six months you could easily loop the whole continent and visit the interior!
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Old 29 Mar 2021
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Northern bit in the winter, southern bit in the summer.
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Old 29 Mar 2021
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PrinceHarley View Post
Northern bit in the winter, southern bit in the summer.
What the man said.

Highly unlikely you would get to the cape in the wet season without getting bogged.

Mezo.
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Old 29 Mar 2021
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When we made a circuit in 2019 we built the timing around the seasons and it worked well, although we plan to go back to Kakadu in "the wet" in the future for a very different experience there. I think your timing is about right, at least for the way we travel.

So, the drivers, as others have noted, are to avoid summer in the north and centre (if you want to travel into the Simpson for example you won't get a permit in the summer). For Victoria you're better off in the summer so you would want to be in Melbourne in January or February.

I think that if I were doing your trip I'd start in Melbourne in February/March, spend some time in Victoria, explore the southern part of SA then work my way through NSW to Sydney and then north to Cairns to arrive around May, then west to Darwin/Kakadu, GRR in June/July, and south through the Red Centre in July/August, arriving back in Melbourne in August/September.

PS: anticlockwise is shorter.
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