Tips&tricks

As far as I can remember there is a campsite in every little village along the Stuart Highway. The prices in the bigger towns were about 3-7A$ per person (that was before the GST). Yulara and Kings Canyon Frontier Lodge were more expensive (11A$ per person), but the prices were getting cheaper with every following night. Usually we preferred to pitch our tent just beside the road. This is no problem when you are in lonesome areas but can be difficult in populated places along the coast

It’s best to use a petrol stove. This fuel is everywhere available and it’s not expensive. Contrary to that, I have seen only once some replacement fuel for gas stoves. That was in Yulara, a town that only exists thanks to the tourism

But there can also be troubles with the petrol stove: we weren’t allowed to transport the fuel bottle on our domestic flight, since it smelled of petrol. Maybe you’ll find a solution if you talk to the employees

Banal but you need to get used to it: in Australia there is left-hand drive. Some little change for continental europeans…

Although Australia is an industrialized country, you’ll find very few cycle shops between Darwin and Port Augusta. The following towns along the Stuart HWY possessed such shops: Darwin, Tennant Creek (quite little range of products), Alice Springs 2x (but they didn’t know “Magura”), Port Augusta. Therefore it is important to have your own spare parts with you. Among other things, we had the following spare parts with us: tyres, tubes, spokes (the left and the right spokes of the rear wheel and the ones of the front wheel usually have different lengths!), brake shoes and wires for the derailleur and the brakes (since my Fateba is equipped with hydraulic brakes, I had a repair kit with me). Unfortunately there was no bulb among our spare parts, and of course it was just this stupid little thing that dropped out first... 

About half of the time we fought against the (sometimes quite strong) headwind or sidewind. There was only every now and then some tailwind.
The main wind direction was south-east. You might think about cycling from the south to the north, if you prefer the easy way. Don't hesitate to have a look at some information about the australian climate, wind und weather

In my opinion you absolutely have to have a rear-view mirror! Road trains represent no longer a danger when you are able to see them approach. Only if they cross an other vehicle right beside you, you may better go off the road. There shouldn't be any problem with that, since the ditch usually consists of a rather broad gravel strip

As long as there is no explicit ban you are allowed to cycle on your own risk on the side-strip of the freeways. However, if it is prohibited you really have to obey. Otherwise you can get in really dangerous situations (as it happened to us)!!!

South of Port Augusta the traffic volume increases dramatically. Right when you come from desert back to civilisation this can really be annoying. You may prefer to avoid the Highway 1

The water along our route was usually bad in taste but still drinkable. We never had any health problems, although we  used our micropur tablets only once or twice 

In the sparsely populated areas along the Stuart HWY there are every now and then some  watertanks, where you could fill up your empty bottles. These tanks are marked in the “Handy Atlas” of “Hema”. However, these information were not always up to date. I updated them to be able to give some information to other cyclists. But this was in 2000… Urs Arnold has also dated but detailed information on his homepage

If you are well provided with water you can cool your bottle by putting a wet sock or something similar over it. The water of the cloth evaporates and cools down the liquid in your bottle. You’ll like the refreshment on hot days!

Kakadu Nationalpark. Unfortunately we haven’t been there. All I can say is that it has to be a very exciting spot, as well as the nearby situated Litchfield NP

Katherine Gorge. Nice gorge  that can be explored by canoe. Nitmiluk NP includes 12 other gorges

Mataranka Thermal Pools. I still regret that we didn’t use this opportunity. The Thermal Pools seem to be well known

Newcastle Waters. Again something we missed. These ruins of a town are only 2km off the highway. We camped near the crossing, but we weren’t aware of this place of interest

Devils Marbles. Quite big marbles of stone. They are there, hanging around and waiting for you to come. Only few tourists make the 500m-detour from the highway to the marbles

Henbury Meteorite Conservation Reserve. Unfortunately the road was closed, so we couldn’t get to the meteorite crater

Mount Conner. From a great distance this mesa looks similar to Uluru / Ayers Rock. There are tours departing at the roadhouse of Curtin Springs (see below)

Uluru. The famous monolith. Thousands of tourists. Advertisement for sightseeing flights by helicopter: “You don’t even leave a footprint”... My suggestion: Take a bicycle or walk around. You’ll have enough time to see the beauty of Ayers Rock and you don’t harass other people by the helicopter’s noise

Kata Tjuta. Less known than Uluru but not less beautiful. Advice: don’t take the late tour. Otherwise they will drag you back to the car after a short time and carry you off to Uluru in order to see the sunset (I must admit that it wasn’t that bad. But I think you got the idea)

Watarrka. A detour that is worth the pain. Just beautiful

Dingo Fence/Dog Fence. The longest fence in the world. And perhaps the most useless one?

Coober Pedy. A rough town in a rough environment. Underground accommodations and a wide range of opal stores are inviting you for a visit

Botanical Garden of Port Augusta. The only reason for me to mention it is, that it showed more or less the same plants we had seen every day for about one month. It’s probably more interesting for people cycling to the north – they can have a first look at what they will see during the next 2000km or so

Great Ocean Road. Because of lack of time we chose a different route. Except for the high traffic density this must be a very nice route – we were told so many times

Daly Waters. A genuine pub, about 2km beside the Stuart HWY. The walls are covered with business cards and stickers from allover the world. Moreover, the fabulous Stuart Tree is only a stone’s throw from there.  At least its remains

Barrow Creek. A very atmospheric roadhouse. These walls are covered with money from allover the world

Casa Nostra (Alice Springs). Although this is a real restaurant and not a roadhouse, I had to mention it somewhere. Dignified atmosphere and great italian food

Mount Ebenezer. This roadhouse belongs to a Yolngu community and runs a nice gallery with aboriginal works of arts

Curtin Springs. The „original Curtin Springs Bullshit“ nailed on the wall, the cook who prepared us some breakfast in the evening and the barkeeper who had some tricky mental exercises for us – it was just cool there. There is also a free campground (it’s about the same as desert soil) and you can take a shower for 1A$

Remember: summer in Europe and the rest of the northern hemisphere means winter in Australia (...and the rest of the southern hemisphere, of course). Although the temperatures in the northern part of the country still are quite hot, sunset is early in the evening. In addition to that it can get rather cold in the inner part of the continent

I think it's best to buy the maps/atlas on site. A big map showing the hole country is not very useful, since it is not precise enough. We were using the "Handy Atlas" from "Hema". In my opinion this is a quite good product. We were told that australian automobile clubs also publish some good maps

During the flight or rather the loading and unloading, the cycles usually aren't treated very carefully by the employees. That's why you are often recommended to pack your bike into an old carton. We didn't do that, but we demounted some exposed pieces and put our recumbents into some strong plastic bags. Result: the conduit of my bike's front hydraulic break was slightly crushed. Fortunately the break still worked. On the return flight I was too lazy to demount anything and was lucky that there was no damage on the bike

If you stay in Australia for a longer period you may take into consideration to open a bank account. It's almost everywhere possible to pay by using a bank card. Also credit cards are almost everywhere welcome

Topic dangerous animals: there are no lions, bears etc. in Australia. The only mammals that might annoy you are the dingoes (especially the ones on campgrounds - they are used to the presence of humans and don't fear them anymore). But there are crocodiles in the northern swamps. And, of course there is a quite wide range of venomous snakes. Usually not really dangerous but appearing in great numbers and very annoying: flies, mosquitos and sometimes ants  

Another hint concerning animals: make sure that there is no snake in your shoes before you put them on. It's the same for the sleeping bag. Snakes like warm temperatures and could therefore try to find a warm place in your sleeping bag

There are no 4.5V flat batteries in Australia. Maybe these batteries are a swiss/european exclusiveness? In any case I couldn't use my torch and had to buy a new one. A good alternative to a conventional pocket lamp is in my opinion a LED-headlamp. Some people use them even for cycling

We stored our documents (passport, credit card) in a kind of wallet that's wore around the neck. This is safe, but I never got used to it. Additionally the partner had copies of the most important documents and of the keys

We made very good experiences in writing a diary about the journey. It's not always easy to drop a line after a hard day, I have to admit. But weeks, months or years after the journey you'll laugh about the pain and you'll rejoice about a nice day

Aldi developed his photos right on site (less expensive than in Switzerland). He was quite disappointed, since the colours are by far to intense and the borders are often truncated. Of course this won't be the case in every australian photo shop. But I think it's the best to develop your pictures in a shop you know and you made good experiences with

Last but not least: