Australia 2010

10,000 Kilometres
of Dust, Fear, and Freedom:

My Three-Month Road Trip Across Australia

Day 1 – From Bali to the Wild North

The flight from Bali to Darwin was only a few hours, but it felt like crossing into another world.
Bali had been noise and warmth and chaos; Darwin was something else — quiet, heavy, and watchful. Even at midnight, the air felt alive, thick with humidity and the faint scent of eucalyptus.

At the airport, I picked up my home for the next three months — a battered Toyota HiAce campervan that shuddered when I started the engine. I named her Roo. She’d be my companion, my refuge, and sometimes, my enemy.

Driving out toward Kakadu National Park, the city vanished fast. The road turned red, the sky endless. Locals had warned me: Never camp too close to water. I learned why when I saw my first crocodile — massive, motionless, and terrifyingly close to where I’d been planning to swim.

That night, something heavy splashed near my camp. I shut off the light and didn’t breathe until sunrise.

Day 12 – The Stranger from France

Somewhere outside Mount Isa, I picked up a hitchhiker — Lucas, from France. He said he’d been walking for days, trying to get to the coast. He had a crooked smile and eyes that didn’t quite meet mine. I told myself it was fine.

We shared stories, bad instant noodles, and silence. He claimed to have killed a snake once with a frying pan — laughed when he said it.

The third night, we camped off-road, under a moon so bright it looked fake. Around 2 a.m., I woke to the sound of footsteps circling the van. Lucas whispered, “You hear that?”
We both froze. Something brushed against the metal. Then — a low growl, close and guttural.

Dingo.
Its eyes flashed once in the torchlight, then disappeared into the scrub.
By morning, Lucas was gone. His pack too. I waited for an hour, then drove off alone. I never saw him again.

Day 28 – The East Coast

By the time I reached Townsville, the ocean looked like glass, calm and endless. I stayed in a hostel — the first shower I’d had in over a week. My reflection in the mirror looked older.

In the kitchen, I met Anna, a traveller from Austria with a bright green van and a bigger laugh. We decided to head south together, caravanning down the coast.

One night near Airlie Beach, something hissed under her van — long and angry. When we checked in daylight, we found the shed skin of a snake as long as my arm. Anna shrugged it off. I couldn’t.

Day 45 – Sydney Nights

Sydney was chaos — traffic, sirens, and humans everywhere after so many empty miles. I parked near Bondi Beach, living off instant coffee and gas station sandwiches.

One night, I woke to scratching inside my van. A spider — a huntsman, palm-sized and fast — sat above me on the ceiling. I didn’t scream. I just stared at it until dawn, both of us too tired to move.

Day 80 – The Great Ocean Road

Leaving Sydney behind felt like escaping gravity. The road south wound through forests, cliffs, and long stretches of nothing. By the time I reached Torquay, the gateway to the Great Ocean Road, I was down to my last few hundred dollars — but it didn’t matter.

Driving along that coastal stretch was the highlight of the whole trip. Wind roared through the open windows, sea spray hit the windshield, and the cliffs dropped straight into the roaring Southern Ocean.

When I reached the Twelve Apostles, the sun was setting — fire-orange on limestone towers rising from the sea. It didn’t feel real. The air tasted like salt and endings. For the first time in months, I felt safe — small, but safe.

Then, as I packed my camera, I noticed a movement down on the beach — something dark, shifting between the rocks. Probably nothing. But this was Australia. It’s never just nothing.

Day 90 – Melbourne and Goodbye

Three months. Over 10,000 kilometres.
The van looked like it had survived a war: scratched, dusty, stickers peeling off. But I’d made it — Darwin to Melbourne, top to bottom.

I parked one last time near St Kilda, walked down to the beach, and watched the penguins waddle out of the water under the pier lights. The city buzzed behind me; the ocean whispered ahead.

For all its danger — the snakes, the spiders, the dingo eyes in the dark — Australia had given me something I didn’t know I was looking for: solitude, awe, and a thin line between fear and freedom.

And sometimes, when the night is too quiet, I still hear the footsteps circling the van.