If I asked you where you would like to go on your grey nomad dream journey, chances are most of us wouldn’t quite know the answer. Nomadding journeys, until you become a grey nomad seem like a far off and distant wishful future. So today we bring you the best four nomad journeys that people give up months of their lives to travel on, so you can get your anticipation humming. The Savannah Way, The Tassie Circle, the Great Southern Touring Route and South from the North are the ones that strike through Nomads’ hearts.
The Savannah Way
The Savannah Way is Australia’s Adventure Drive, linking Cairns in Tropical North Queensland with the historic pearling town of Broome in Western Australia’s Kimberley, via the natural wonders of Australia’s tropical savannahs and the Northern Territory’s Top End.
The 3700 kilometre route links 15 National Parks and five World Heritage areas. You can explore just a section or cross the continent enjoying its wide horizons, ancient gorges and abundant wildlife, connecting with Aboriginal and pioneer heritage in today’s friendly outback.
This website can help you plan your journey on the Savannah Way with maps, safety information and much more. http://www.savannahway.com.au/
Chiefly though, there is three legs to the journey, any one of which would make you salivate.
Broome to Katherine, Katherine to Normanton and Normanton to Cairns. Each of these trips could be comfortably broken off as a large adventure of its own, but together, it woulf make for three to six months of amazing outback adventures. You’ll need to travel from May to November, outside the wet season, obviously.
The Tassie Circle
The beautiful island to Australia’s south is a magical haven and a terrific nomadders short trip. It can be done in two weeks or four, and the most popular itinerary is to circle the island from Hobart taking in Freycinet National Park, Launceston, Stanley, Cradle Mountain. Strahan and returning to Hobart to fly home. The beauty of the region will open your mind to a whole different view of Australia, with natural treasures like the Bay of Fires in Mount William National Park and the Cataract Gorge to be enjoyed with lavish delight. The campsites along Frechinet National Park are free camping, with a true natural feeling of being in the middle of nowhere watching over nature’s best beauty. You must take in the World Heritage Listed wilderness of Cradle Mountain in the Lake St Clare National Park and willing participants can white water raft the Franklin River. Tasmania’s amazing fern forests will astound you and the waterfalls will delight. And if you miss the Marakoopa caves in Mole Creek, you’re crazy!
The Great Southern Touring Route
Victoria, for such a small state is a gold mine of beauty. It has gold, wildlife, whales, penguins, shipwrecks, beautiful food and an oceanfront to remember, and it’s small enough to enjoy on a simple trip.
Starting in Melbourne, the classic trip takes you west to Ballarat to check out Sovereign Hill for the gold and the Eureka Stockade for the rebellion. Further west is recommended for more gold history, but with a Chinese flavour, in Ararat.
Then head South to Stawell enjoying the mountainous Grampians National Park.
According to Tony Wheeler from Lonely Planet, you should go south through picturesque Dunkeld to Port Fairy for a dose of seafaring memories, then it’s a loop back towards Melbourne through Warrnambool, with whales from July to September and maritime history any time of year.
Then there’s the Shipwreck Coast past Port Campbell. Even on a calm and sunny day, it’s clear this rocky coastline would not have been a good place to have arrived at unexpectedly with sails full set. Loch Ard Gorge is the place to confirm that feeling, and nearby is the subject of Victoria’s favourite postcard, the Twelve Apostles – or however many of them are left this week. Soon after, the Great Ocean Road leaves the coast to wind up through the dense greenery of the Otways. Walkers can stick to the water’s edge along the Great Ocean Walk. Then it’s Apollo Bay and the winding delights of the Great Ocean Road: Lorne (fine dining), Torquay (surfing) and Geelong (sheep, footy, Fords).
What a ripper!
North from the South
Think about it… I mean, really think about it! Picture yourself driving a four-wheel-drive from Broken Hill to Port Augusta, Coober Pedy and then up to Uluru, before heading west to Docker River and down the infamous Gunbarrel Highway to Kalgoorlie and Perth. It’s the true outback extravaganza.
It sounds like a tough trek and a hot one in the dusty summer winds, but the memories of sharing such a journey with a loved on is something none of us would ever forget. Everlasting stars, wild animals like eagles and camels and possums that peep out at night are all part of the glory of this journey. The big red rock of Uluru, and the history of indigenous Australia alongside the hot, dry and dusty road with a killer sand-laden wind fresh from the furnaces of hell. It’s an iconic landscape that many never get to see.
“A land of sweeping plains, of rugged mountain ranges and droughts and flooding rains.”
The South Australian and Northern Territory desert is nothing short of awesome. You’d expect dry boring bleak roads cutting through nothing, but that is quite frankly an understatement in some areas. It’s hours
There’s something about the South Australian desert that induces child-like awe. It should be utterly tedious to drive through — a constant canvas of bleakness and absence of life — but the scale of the nothingness will render you dumbstruck. Each time you go over a hill, you meet a broad brown horizon that’s both stark and mesmerising. It’s tough country, and it’s no wonder that you can drive two hours between roadhouses — the only vague hints of human settlement — through much of the state.
Find out more
See www.australia.com.
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