If you have ever wanted to hit the open highway for 3000km then a West Australia campervan holiday is perfect. There’s so much to see and do along the way and it can all be done in two weeks. Of course you won’t be alone – you’ll be beating the same path as the Aussie Grey Nomads.
Never give your holiday wheels a name. I learnt the hard way. We hired a Maui VW Venturer for two weeks to cover more than 3000 km from Broome to Perth in an epic West Australia campervan holiday. Before we were even out of the Britz office I had nicknamed her Maureen. She could easily handle the 110km/ph highway speed limit and she came fully equipped with everything from a pull-out tv to a table, shower and toilet – all seamlessly stowed away inside her bowels.
Campervan hire
On a West Australia campervan holiday like the epic Great Northern Highway , you become very fond of your wheels/accommodation/home away from home. In this part of the world, it’s really the best (and in some cases ONLY) option to travel. It doesn’t come cheap at around $4000NZ for 14 days with all the insurance and add- ons. We researched cars and accommodation combinations but found that it made more sense for to hire a campervan as it gave us more freedom and certainty of having a bed for the night.
Some ideas for your West Australia campervan holiday
- Staircase to the Moon | Town Beach, Broome
- DIY sunset drinks | Cable Beach, Broome
- Clifftop walk spotting whales | Kalbarri National Park
- Feed the dolphins | Monkey Mia, Denham
- Sample local ale Matso’s Mango Beer | Broome
Join the Grey Nomads
Along this route you will undoubtedly come across a certain group of people who migrate from all over Australia to this part of the world year round. They form an armada of caravans, campervans and RVS and are dubbed ‘the Grey Nomads’.
They are Australia’s mature, a group who want to feel the wind in their face, put pedal to the metal and explore their great country. Time is of no consequence. They’re organised, very helpful and they look like they are having a bloody good time. Husbands and wives, families and friends, organised groups – they were generally parked up in the caravan parks before we arrived a bit frazzled.
We were in awe of the Grey Nomads who set up camp and dismantled it so fast we were still trying to work out what grey matter was and which pipe it linked to. Grey matter for non RV users is grey water/black water or the waste water – not to be confused with the toilet or related at all to Grey Nomads!
These travelling seniors have all the camping gadgets. They are usually the ones with quad bikes, extensive fishing kits, flags, various camper ‘bling’ and fold up furniture of every description.
Husband and I always seemed to be one step behind, as Gen X’ers, we felt a little out of our depth initially. But we soon got into the Grey Nomad pace – and by that I mean a pretty slow one. “Why the rush?” asked one nomadic man of the grey variety when we were revving Maureen out of her designated spot .
We did eventually succumb to the daily grind of driving exhaustion to spend a day reading and relaxing in Maureen beside the beach. “Imagine doing this forever,” I remarked to husband over my chilled glass of chardonnay. He’d already nodded off in his beach chair.
Remote highway driving
You are not going to be impacted by Grey Nomads en masse as part of your West Australia campervan holiday. When it comes to driving the Great Northern Highway, sometimes it’s hours before there is any sign of life. On one of my drive shifts, I once leaned over to wake up sleeping husband in order to point out an imminent pock-holed rusty signpost . It was just the sheer joy of seeing something other than red dirt speckled with the odd bracken bush.
Often the only thing that really jolts you alert from straight highway driving are the slightly ominous signs of tire tracks angrily veering off the road into the dirt. These are usually full-stopped by a dead roo being feasted on by four million flies. Skippy and friends were to be feared according to Mr Britz. They were an insurance hazard, potentially rendering us broke if we hit one and flipped Maureen. Dawn and dusk, Mr Britz warned us, was when Kangaroos were on the move – drive it at your own peril.
Actually much of what Mr Britz said to us during his campervan spiel didn’t really register – I wish I had taken notes because Maureen is a high maintenance gal – she’s got a lot going on behind her simple exterior. As part of our West Australia campevan holiday, we travelled 14 days from Broome to Perth via the Karijini National Park and Tom Price with a total of just over 3000km.
Our trip coincided with school holidays, so we had some grand plans to avoid families and park up somewhere remote to watch the waves roll in. Note to amateur campervaners like us – there is a lot of terrain in WA that you can’t negotiate in Maureen or her friends because they are not four-wheel drive.
Truck stops
We did note one important piece of advice from Mr Britz. If you see a truck stop, gas up no matter what your fuel gage says because you don’t know when you’ll see the next pump. It wasn’t just the diesel we were grateful for, it was a break from the long hours on the road. These truck stops are also a chance to talk to other travellers and let you buy anything from tacky souvenir beer stubbie holders to Best Of [insert bad 80s music artist here] CDs. It’s also where you get a loo break because if you don’t want Maureen to smell like a nightclub washroom at 3am then use the closet sized toilet cubicle for number ones ONLY.
As part of our West Australia campervan holiday, we used caravan parks and usually got a powered site without booking. Most of them down the coast cost around $52AUD. However, on the odd occasion we missed out on a spot. In the Karijini the park had a free but barren piece of wasteland for campground spillover and aside from an angry German tourist who insisted on parking us in, it worked out perfectly. The battery in Maureen gave us all we needed for a night or two without having to hook up to power. You just can’t use things like the air conditioning, microwave or charge up devices.
Plenty to do when you’re not driving
It wasn’t all just driving of course – we hiked Mt Nameless in Tom Price, had a wild and windy jaunt around the Kalbarri Coast on the Bigurda Trail where we saw breaching Humpback whales offshore and caught the Staircase to the Moon in Broome. This brief appearance happens only 2-3 nights each month between March and October where the rising moon creates a stairway effect on the mudflats.
Exmouth is the gateway to the Ningaloo Reef and a bustling little town after the remoteness of the Karijini. This is where you can book in to swim with the famous whale sharks if it’s the right season (around mid March-mid July) or drive into Ningaloo Marine Park and find a spot by the beach, open the back doors to your camper, cook up your lunch and relax with a cold beer.
Husband and I took a few strange but not unpleasant detours on our West Australia campervan holiday owing to weather and the busy season filling up camping grounds at hot spots like Coral Bay.
Carnarvon isn’t exactly a holiday must-do but it has a space museum and a big satellite dish which was a great way to avoid the rain and it was surprisingly quite good. The walk to one of a WA landmarks, One Mile Jetty , was a bit underwhelming and on a wet and windy darkening Sunday afternoon we flagged the actual jetty and saw nothing of the famous coffee pot train, just forlorn looking train tracks.
As you travel further down the highway towards Perth, the friendly wave to passing campervans and motorists that breaks up driving boredom in the remote north slowly vanishes. The Grey Nomads are diluted among all the other tourists and families tripping around. The red dirt framed by a featureless remote outback suddenly becomes roads with trees and houses. You yearn to turn around and go back.
Arriving in Perth
And inevitably the highway turns into a spaghetti junction where TomTom has some work to do navigating your safepassage into WA’s state capital of Perth. And all of a sudden we are at the busy Britz office, filling out paperwork and some officious rep makes her way around Maureen – signs a sheet and looks at us over her glasses wondering why we are still standing there. “You can go, it’s all fine,” she shoos us out. It was like losing a new best friend as Maureen was driven off into a cleaning bay. So this is why I should never have named her, never humanised her as a leading lady in our two-week adventure. I know it’s crazy but I burst into tears as we walked out of the Britz office. Husband was slightly embarrassed consoling me and adding; “It’s just a campervan!”.
But Maureen wasn’t just a campervan. She was a home, a travelling companion and our own unique guide through this amazing West Australian wilderness. I guess the tears just flowed because it was all over. I still miss Maureen, I miss being on the road.