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A Clue to the Size of Australia

Forestwood

“Could we visit Cairns or The Barrier Reef one weekend? ”

It is a question that is often asked when we have visitors from Britain or Europe come and stay.

Cairns is over 1700 km (1,055.9 mi) away and would take 20 hours to reach by car. And this is within my State. Just one of the three states on the East coast of Australia.

It is hard for foreign visitors to fathom the distances we deal with, until they actually drive them.

It’s a whole different scale.

There are several places in Australia where roads are straight in one direction for 10 km or so. No hills, mountains or bends.

The following social media post might give some hints as to what we deal with.

N.B. Queensland is the name of the state where I live.

Americans are avid drivers I believe. Is that true? Or has the price of fuel curtailed weekend road trips?

Blogger Sandy from Canada was contemplating a six-hour trip to buy ingredients for a special dish.

I confess to driving three hours in search of a lost variety of apples a month or so back. To make it worthwhile, we stayed overnight at a winery and made it a short getaway.

How far would you drive for a weekend trip?

road

Published by Forestwood

A philosophic Aussie writes here at StPA, one who will readily admit to loving Scandinavia. I'm interested in global politics and what drives us to be who we are. Scratch the surface and you'll find a practical Environmentalist with an egalitarian bent, trying to unleash a little creativity via the written word. Scandinavian culture, literature and traditions are close to my heart, even though I'm Australian. Travel and courteous discussions greatly broaden the mind, so I travel if I can and am always up for a vigorous, respectful discussion. I'm an avid reader, a writer and I enjoy photography and crafts, particularly traditional art forms. I hope you'll find 'Something to Ponder About,' in my WordPress Community.

157 thoughts on “A Clue to the Size of Australia”

  1. So true, people have the same misconceptions about Canada. We often drive 2 1/2 hours each way for a day hike or ski, or 6 hours for a weekend stay, but 6 hours for ingredients is a but much. Maggie

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    1. Sandy was making a special dish, Maggie. And I was chasing a carton of particular type of apple. I found apples plus a little wine, but not the apples I was after. Still they were delicious. (No pun intended)

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      2. There’s a show about that long highway of your’s that’s so flat and so featureless (?) that truckers and other drivers fall asleep and drive off the road. It wasn’t as exciting as the Canadian shows about ice road driving and extreme tow-trucks. Still, it helped get some idea of the vastness of Australia.

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      3. I used to watch those ice trucking shows! Amazing! Drivers with nerves of steel. My hubby watches the Outback truckers but it doesn’t appeal as much to me. The roads are pretty boring and lifeless. Saltbush and the odd kangaroo….

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    1. I don’t know Nebraska, Peggy, but I assume that there is lots of space and farmland. When fuel was cheaper, some folks thought nothing of making 3 hour trip to Noosa for the day- in summer without air con! Now it only takes one and a half hours and we think it is a long drive.

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      1. Noosa is the brand name of a yoghurt made in the US state of Colorado. they say they got their starter from Australia, though I have no way of verifying that being possible, short of smuggling it through customs. Anyway, if is similar to Greek yoghurt in consistency and quite good!

        Like Leggypeggy I am a Nebraskan, though I live there now. It is about an eight-and-a-half-hour drive or so across the longest distance in the longest distance in the state, from the Northwest corner to the Southeast corner. FI live in the Western end, which is rocky buttes north and south, with Nebraska’s most notable feature, the Sandhills in between. Thee state isn’t flat like most Americans think, though the I-80 Interstate, which follows the floodplain of the Platte is and that’s typically why out-of-staters crossing on that road get that impression.

        Riverhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandhills_%28Nebraska%29

        In the central part of Nebraska and the Western USAA, people are used to driving long distances for cultural and sporting events, shopping, and visiting far-scattered family. I don’t think we can top Australia for desolation except on the coasts, but we do have population centers largely on the coasts and a few big cities like Denver, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City, for example, to break up the vast, largely unpopulated or scarcely populated areas.

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      3. You are correct Doug. Our countries both are vast, but yours had more townships across the breadth of the continent. And is a might more hospitable than the outback. I think of those fields of grain in the midwest of America and marvel at the amount of space for cultivation. Our lands are more limited in that respect. The further inland you go, the less food crops, the more sheep or cattle and land is rated as to how many beasts per acre it can support. Some properties out west are immense.
        Given this characteristic of Nebraska, is the uptake of Electric vehicles slow?

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      4. I doubt electric vehicles will have much inroads until the infrastructure is more mature. Hybrid cars are more likely to have value here, but gasoline and diesel will still be the most practical vehicles for the foreseeable future.

        Yes, there are more little towns and villages in the US West than you’d have in Australia, as it is more hospitable, with water resources, work opportunities, etc. Th Great Plains – Texas up into Alberta, Manitoba, are the great granary of the world. Under this area is a huge aquifer, the Ogallala Aquifer, the deepest are largest portion of which is under the state of Nebraska. That makes a lot of this agriculture possible, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer

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      5. Fascinating about the acquifer, Doug. Ironic also to think that large swathes of inland desert Australia was once an inland sea – eons ago. Now it is just desert.

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      8. The major highways are never the most interesting part of the US. I’ve driven down through the Black Hills into Nebraska and that’s a very different view of the state.

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      9. The highways are boring, Zazzy. And they look pretty much the same anywhere. I was thinking yesterday that the freeways here could almost be the freeways in many countries. You see so little of the true nature of locations from them. Taking the off ramps and visiting the smaller towns along the way are much more interesting.

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      10. That’s a fact! You would have seen Nebraska’s Pine Ridge, one of the more scenic drives through this state. If you came through South Dakota on US 385, you would have seen some of the prettiest parts of the Black Hills, too.

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      12. No, though Custer State Park is a very worthwhile place to visit and there are a couple caves in that area that are, I think, state parks. Mount Rushmore is a national monument, of course.

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      15. The Black Hills definitely include Mount Rushmore and some small tourist towns around it, but they also include Spearfish Canyon, as noted, Custer State Park which has a marvelous restaurant, Needles Highway which is well worth the drive, and I think there’s a hot spring but I can’t remember the name of it.

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      16. Yes, Spearfish Canyon, while a bit of a drive to get there, is well worth the drive, especially when leaves turn in Fall.

        https://www.blackhillsbadlands.com/scenic-drives/spearfish-canyon-scenic-byway

        The Needles highway, too, is something worth the time to take!

        http://www.gettingstamped.com/needles-highway-south-dakota/

        So much for promoting a neighboring state! What the heck! Here’s where you can contact the state’s tourist information people:

        https://www.travelsouthdakota.com/

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      2. Haha. Will do. One day we must catch up for coffee as I am zipping past…..lol.. I used to travel south twice a year but much less often now. Do you travel up to Queensland much?

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    2. Mind you, when we lived in South Africa I used to shock my family in Germany when I told them that my hairdresser lived ONLY 100 kms away. And in Zimbabwe and to get to our dentist was even a longer drive.

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      2. Once my husband had an infection and the dentist (our friend, really) showed me how to give my husband an injection into his gums (rather than driving there every day for a week). I had to push the plunger until he (aka my husband) jumped. Yeuch! there is a reason why I didn’t become a nurse or doctor!

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      4. We were living in the capital!! But the dentist said I could do it and therefore I should. I dare say my husband could have found a dental nurse if he’d looked.

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      5. Oh you were living in the capital. I can’t imagine that happening here in the Nanny state of Australia. Workplace protocols and Health and Safety Measures have put an end to that. They would rather country folks travel 1000s of kilometres rather than inject themselves or others….

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  5. I get this! People are always asking me why those of us from the US don’t travel more. Well, because everything excepting Mexico and Canada is an ocean away? And even Mexico and Canada are a long, long distance to drive for most of us. Australia is roughly the size of the US though you have fewer “states” (do you call them states? I forget.) It looks like Melbourne isn’t that far from Canberra but I know it’s an all day drive.

    I used to drive 140 miles to shop or sometimes just to have lunch, but that’s about my limit. I think it would be great to live in England where there are a bunch of countries to visit within fairly easy travel.

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    1. It is a whole ‘nother world where you can walk or catch a 5 minute bus to the town centre, Zazzy. I had Danish friends who were cross if their children arrived home late. In countries like ours, distances and traffic congestion make always arriving on time difficult. You have to leave earlier than planned to cater for potential traffic snarls or a hundred red traffic lights. My urban area – as it is a conglomeration of one major cities and three satellite cities takes about two hours to cross from one end to the other and that is growing rapidly. Soon it will include the coastal areas north and south. A mega city. Difficult to administer. The largest municipality in Australia.
      And you are correct. We do call them States. But only 6 in all and two territories.

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      1. That’s what I was thinking. Something like have six Texases instead of 50 states. It’s confusing but interesting. Too bad it’s a half a world away to come visit y’all.

        I lived in a larger city but not like New York or Los Angeles or the mega cities you’re describing. It was only, at the time I was there, maybe a half hour home from the middle of Kansas City – but to get to the different areas of suburban sprawl, it could easily take an hour or two. I grew up in suburbia which at the time were small towns not that far from the city. They’re even hard to get through now.

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      2. It is interesting to compare the European model with the American/Australian. The “newer” world countries tended to spread out, low and flat, and the European countries kept their homes small, compact and built vertically. In Asia, the population had necessitated massive vertical developments of high rise buildings. But the Asian public transport system is amazing. As is the ones in Europe.
        I guess a smaller population has led to a public transport system in Australia that is lacking in coverage. We have a train here that can take us into the city. It takes over an hour. I don’t mind and will read a book or listen to a podcast along the way, but many become frustrated and drive closer in as it takes less time.
        It is a shame that urban planners didn’t think further ahead. I guess it is all about costs.
        I also grew up in suburbia. We had all that we needed really until we grew up and our world became larger.

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      3. I don’t think the electric car will ever take over away from a big city that invests in the infrastructure. There are no trains here in the middle of the country, well few but they go through the big cities. Few buses and I am phobic about buses. My brother said that Kansas City was running their buses for free just to get someone to ride them.

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    1. Now Sheree, you are making me green with envy. “pop” to Italy. You just shut your mouth now…. ( just joking). I would love to be able to do that. To get out of this country requires an 8 hour flight at minimum and the dollars to go with…..

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  7. I hope I would never underestimate the size of your country to that extent, but you’re right that it’s hard to appreciate the distances when you live somewhere as small as the UK! Here driving times depend so much on the business and condition of the roads. You could probably drive at least twice as far as us in the same time! For a short weekend trip ideally we wouldn’t drive more than a couple of hours each way, while for a longer weekend the five hour (300 miles) each way drive to Newcastle is about our limit!

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    1. Five hours to Newcastle? To travel 300mile/kms? Hmm. So there are disadvantages to clustered urban countries.
      In five hours I could be half way to Sydney – a distance of 500 kms or so. That is doable, but I wouldn’t want to do it too often. A day drive of two – 21/2 hours is my limit. Mind you, I used to drive three hours to Noosa when the roads were less developed as a teenager. For the day. Just to sit on a beach. Ridiculous now when I think of it.

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      1. Yes, 300 miles to Newcastle (not kms). Five hours is a decent average – we’ve done it in a little less if the roads are clear but it has been known to take as much seven or eight if there’s been a major accident. Normally we would allow six for that journey including a break for refreshments halfway. These days we prefer to go less often and stay longer but when my in-laws were alive we went more frequently but (because we were both working then) could only stay a short while on most visits. I’m glad not to have to do that any more! If we do go up for a short visit these days, e.g. a family party or funeral, we go by train!

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      2. Good on you for choosing to take the train to family events in Newcastle, Sarah. Not only do you avoid the traffic jams and save on fuel you can do something else useful while travelling on the train.

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  8. I agree. Americans are avid drivers and, I think, gas prices has not curtailed it. I was just in California a week ago and gas was $4.70/gallon. There were still a lot of drivers on the road. I made a mistake of trying to drive from west Texas to the next state east and I found myself still in Texas after 12 hours.

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    1. Texas is big in the same vein as the states of Australia. I just ran the comparison of Western Australia ( the state that covers the country from north to south in the western half) through google and here is what it came up with:
      Australia is 11 times bigger than Texas. The state of Western Australia is the biggest one in all of the continent, extending over 2.5 million km2. This makes the Lone Star state around 0.28 times as large as Western Australia.
      But after 12 hours of driving, you definitely understand where I am at, living in Australia.
      The price of 1 liter (1/4 gallon) of gas in Sydney is $1.35 (AU$2.04) So the equivalent price in America would be around $5.40 a gallon ($8 bucks AUD).
      And it is much higher in New Zealand.
      Even at these prices, Aussies still like big cars (utes) and drive everywhere. The public transport system is lacking so people just spend more money on fuel.
      Fuel is a big problem for Australian security in the supply chain world we live in today. We only have one month’s supply of fuel for the entire continent. And food is trucked. The fuel we mine is high grade so we export it all – as we get more money for it overseas. Ironic, hey. Similar with LPG gas…..

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  9. Very interesting post! I have family in Toowoomba and some in the south, I think Melbourne area. I don’t hear from them though. I knew it was a huge country but your examples bring it to proper perspective. Being up on a mountain, we are not close to anything. Flagstaff, AZ is a 2 1/2 hr drive on straight roads. It’s a small to medium sized town that is still growing and usually only go in spring and fall. Same applies to Phoenix, AZ. It’s a huge city and takes at least 3 hours of twists and turns up and down the mountain road. Summer is not the time to go there. We did make the trip last spring and had to navigate the snowy roads till we got down to warm country with no snow. Trips are made for big shopping maybe twice a year. I went to the quilt show during that last trip and visited with friends and family. The kids drive the little, fuel efficient car and load it to the ceiling. 😉

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    1. You remind me of the sheep graziers who live in the more remote regions of Australia, Marlene. They drive in to town once a month for supplies, load up the car and have huge freezers run off generators at home. Far removed from the situation in Toowoomba ( a beautiful city and lovely and cool – up on the mountain top!) and Melbourne – another beautiful city. My favourite in Australia.
      It makes sense to stock up when you do travel there. It sounds a bit like a vacation almost. Are E.V.’s a more popular option in the US now?

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      1. What are E.V’s? And yes, when we make the trip to a big city, we do make a vacation of it. It’s often an overnight. There is a walmart here and one other grocery store. I don’t care for walmart but there are no craft supply places. Our JC Penny’s store is so small it’s almost not worth the bother. People here are mostly just above the poverty level while the rest come up from the valley in summer to not melt. They head back down when the snow flies. We do a LOT of online shopping here.

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      2. Interesting that you do a lot of online shopping in your area, Marlene.
        It seems very sensible to make a short holiday of it when you go into town.
        Ev’s are electric vehicles.

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      3. There are no plug in stations where I live. We had some in Oregon but none on this little mountain. Most people here drive big trucks because of the weather and the hard work. The rest are old as dirt cars and a lot of small more fuel efficient vehicles. I have a borrowed little bitty thing I use on rare occasion. My beast, when it’s not hauling construction/building materials is used as a storage bin. 😉

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      4. So sorry I missed this comment Marlene. For some reason it ended up in spam. I quickly restored it. It was interesting to read that most of the cars around you are old or the small fuel efficient numbers. Not the impression one has of the gas guzzlers that America was once famous for. I am impressed that you still drive – a great skill to keep up and that you have found a dual purpose for your stationary vehicle! Well done!

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  10. I echo Sarah’s comments. We live just 65 miles from London but it can take 3 hours to drive there, just to the outskirts. Our beloved Cornwall is 350 miles away but the minimum is 5.5 hours and it can easily take 8. But if it was a guaranteed straight run, we would definitely do a 5-hour drive for a weekend break

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    1. Eight hours to Cornwall? Goodness. So Europe is great for close transport to other places, but the U.K. isn’t. I assume that is due to population levels and congested roads? Come to think of it, I do remember a British work colleague who had immigrated told me that it would take her over an hour minutes to drive just two kilometres to pick up her daughter from day care. She said she could walk in in much less. Some new migrants to Australia have come from Europe where they don’t have a car and are surprised at our car culture.
      Is the public transport in the UK, not a popular option or do people prefer driving their own cars?

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      2. Making public transport cheap is something that seems to be anathema to Governments. Here the train and bus fares rise every financial year. But in somewhere like Hong Kong, it is so very cheap. I do think if it was made very inexpensive, more people would take advantage of it. For a time recently, the Government made the trains free – and there was an increase in usage. The network struggles to cover a vast country like ours though. And we have no metro.

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      5. I’m in two minds about this. Less fossil fuels burned – YES! But I believe they still don’t have a real solution about what to do with the batteries. 😟

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      6. I thought there were some suggestions being developed. But yes – there are no firm plans in place. Mind you a friend has a Toyota Prius that is 20 years old and still running on original batteries.

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      7. We have had an EV for going on….4.5 years now I think and we have road tripped within Norway as well as into Sweden, Denmark and, most recently, to Berlin — where we also did a day trip into Poland. The infrastructure in Norway is the best but, with proper planning and ensuring you have the “right” app to charge at the particular charging place you choose, it can be okay. (I think the EU is talking about an overhaul such that one charging app could be used for any station….hope they do this.)

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    1. Driving 30 hours when you can fly? Indeed, Bridget. Although it depends on what you plan to do at your destination. Because Australian cities are so spread out: Think urban sprawl on steroids), a car can be a necessity at the other end, unless you want to navigate the lacking public transport system here, spending loads of time waiting at bus stops, confused as to why the bus has not come. ( They are notoriously late). You can of course hire a car at your destination, but they are pretty expensive due to insurance costs. Even 12 hours driving is a bit much for me, although I would do that twice a year before I had kids. Before the advent of car air conditioning, it was a hot journey in summer. I used to take one of those little manual pump action water spray bottles and spray myself periodically to cool me down along the way….

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      1. “Urban sprawl on steroids” LOL Good one!
        I remember the hot car journes, from Austria, down to the South of Italy (Napoli/Naples) always staying on the closest road to the ocean, because I didn’t have a map, windows down, cold water bottles in the neck. Amanda, we are officially old. 🙂 (or I am).

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      2. Cold water bottles in the neck. Haha. Indeed, Bridget we are officially old. There have been signs of this as I approached 60, but I was in denial. Like walking into a room and forgetting what my purpose in being there, forgetting people’s names and places that I have been to and loved. Names and geography was something that came so easily to me, it is a surprise that they are slipping away something into the ether. I celebrated the same milestone you are approaching last year, Bridget so at least I am in good company! But there are many positives to turning 60 as well. That is rather nice.

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  13. Americans love their cars and SUVs and trucks, yep. We drive far pieces but usually go across many state lines when doing that. However in cities like Atlanta or LA you can spend a few hours in the car driving 25 miles down the interstate. It all depends on where you’re driving as to how far you’ll go.

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    1. Driving 25 miles in a few hours? Not fun, Ally. I tend to go around the back roads to avoid that kind of congestion or travel outside of peak times if I can. When I moved to my current location, I had to drive 50 km – (30 miles approx) one way to work. I timed my journeys. Going to work took around 45 minutes, but going home in peak hour traffic took over two hours. I was kind of glad when Covid came along as that was the perfect excuse to give up that job, along with others.
      And when we chose the place to live in our semi-retirement, we chose somewhere that offered us everything we needed within walking distance. ( I am long term planner). One day we won’t be able to drive and it is beneficial for the planet to drive less. Mind you, I haven’t totally convinced the M.o.t.h. of that fact yet.

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      1. Your commute sounds like my husband’s commute. Is it any wonder that with the advent of Covid-19 and working from home he was a happy camper?

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      2. It makes total sense that your hubby is a happy camper with the Wfh trend. I would have continued working had that been an option. I was a hands on Allied Health Therapist for children, so not so easy to do from home.
        Does your husband have to attend the office at all, given that the Covid situation has settled?

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      3. Z-D retired last fall so he no longer has to do the commute at all. In his final year of working he was 3 days at home, 2 days in the office. It was a perfect schedule for him– and wouldn’t you know it happened in his final days!

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      1. I don’t go to New Jersey any more. Daughter Kate comes to me now that John isn’t here to drive us. She’ll be here in a few weeks. Excitement!

        Son John lives in Washington State. It’s on the west coast, and I’m on the east. Both of us are inland, though, not near oceans. I am three hours ahead of him.

        Daughter Lise lives in Denmark, six hours ahead of me. She has been here once this year and hopes to come back two more times.

        Do you get to see your family members fairly often?

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      2. Most of my family live in the same region, Anne so that is a bonus. And no time differences to be a bother. My daughter boss moved to Western Australia – on the other side of the continent and there is a three hour time difference.
        It is a three hour drive to visit my aging parents. And a problem when they refuse to move closer.
        Of course you are excited for your daughter’s imminent visit. Enjoy! Do you ever think you would like to live near the ocean?

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      3. John and I lived on Long Island for 50 years. We were two minutes from an inlet of Long Island Sound, the body of water between our island and the state of Connecticut. On the other side was the ocean, which took us about 45 minutes to reach by car. Long Island is about 150 miles long and 30 miles wide. One end juts out into the ocean, and the other has Brooklyn and Queens, two of the five boroughs of New York City.

        We swam in the Sound occasionally and went to the ocean less often. I loved the hiss of the receding waves, as well as bobbing up and down on the waves before they broke on the shore. I grew up near the Mississippi River where it was hot and humid. Now I’m in the mountains and loving it.

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      4. There are not so many of us, Anne who like the colder, higher altitudes. Thousands flock to the beaches to retire. I did too, but I would have also been happy to go live on a mountain – one that had services and facilities of course!

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  15. I feel positively superior, living in the smallest State of Oz ! But even Victoria has huge swathes of featureless countryside – viz., the Little Desert, up there about half-way between Melbourne and Adelaide.

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    1. I have not been further east than Ballarat or Port Fairy, M-R so I will have to take your word for the Little Desert. Melbourne is more compact in some respects than its Eastern counterparts. It has been interesting to see the preference for young couples who once built a house on the outer perimeter change in the 90’s and onwards to living inner city dwellings that were gentrified. I agree with them. Who wants to spend your rec time sitting in traffic every day. I couldn’t do it.

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      1. I think, if I’m remembering correctly, that I’ve only had one job in my entire working life that saw me driving to work – in Sydney, working for John Sexton in North Sydney and coming down from .. Neutral Bay ? Cammeray ? – honestly, my memory ! Very little traffic-sitting, lucky me. I believe, Amanda, my peripatetic life is catching up with me. [grin]

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      2. Your memory for place names might be failing, M-R but your memory of fancy words isn’t. That is the first time I have heard peripatetic used in normal conversations. But I do live in Queensland! Lol.

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  16. Coming from Canada, I really appreciated this post. I once read that Europeans think that 100 kilometres is a long way whereas North Americans think 100 years is a long time 🙂 I expect Aussies (who aren’t indigenous to the country, that is) could say something pretty similar.

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    1. Australians would agree. I used to travel 100km return to work each day. The journey home wasn’t fun at all – although the journey to work wasn’t so bad. Timing is everything though. A journey that takes 25 minutes can take 2 hours in traffic. The effect of sitting in a car with flexed hips in the driver’s seat for hours each day begins to take a toll as I got older. I did resign and found other work closer to home.
      As for 100 years, our country as we know it now, is only just over 200 years old, yet for the First Nations people, it is over 60,000 years old. I remember the fact I lived in one of the countries known as the new world hit me when I visited a castle in Denmark. There was a world globe on display with all the countries mapped. The globe dated from the 1600s. There was a blank space were Australia and New Zealand should have been. That made me think….

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      1. There are many people, where I live in rural Canada, who also travel that much to get to work each day. It would cost so much to buy or rent in the city that they choose to live in the country (where the cost of living is cheaper) and just commute. I would hate travelling that much every day, though (and yes, it gets harder on the body as you age).

        And wow, Amanda 😳 That map would indeed be a helpful visual for putting things in perspective…! Our country is only just acknowledging the terrible harm we did to our own First Nations people. It all seems far too little; far too late…

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  17. The distance one drives depends on traffic. I think nothing of driving 30km to our nearest town to shop as it’s a straight road with no traffic.
    Once a month I drive 50km to attend my book club morning. It’s a 40 minute drive. For a weekend away, three to five hours is normal. Sometimes we would drive three hours to Cape Town and come home the same day but prefer to overnight.
    In a city you would spend an hour or more in traffic and only cover 15 to 20km!
    If we need to go some place to get special items we can’t get locally we make a day of it. We bird watch on the way, stop for lunch and just enjoy the journey.

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    1. It sounds like you have adapted well to travelling long distances, Puppy. (If I may call you that?)
      When we make the three hour drive. I try to incoporate interesting stops along the way and take a thermos of tea and stop at a scenic lookout. We also like to stop at a cafe along the way too and support the small country towns and their struggling economies.

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    1. 40 kilometres range for the choice to travel in cars in Europe? Fascinating. I suppose inexpensive plane fares made air travel seem like the best option. (Although not the most environmentally friendly choice).

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  19. lol. I drove almost 3hrs one way so 6hrs in one day to pick up a puppy. Walcha mountain, hair pin bends mountainous country where they drill rods into the mountain side & pour cement somehow to save the roads from falling off the mountain. Beautifully, hair raising.

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    1. Walcha Mountain? I just had to google it and the first search result said the Walcha road was,” NOT CLOSED at this time.” Speaks volumes. Just as well it wasn’t your daily commute.
      I have seen those holes drilled and sprayed cement on some of the cuttings here and there. On the Toowoomba range road, they have placed shipping containers beside the road to contain rockfalls!

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  20. Canada is a car -centric country. Except for a few cities (Toronto being one of them) most people need a car to get around. Even in Toronto where people can rely on public transit, owning a car is the norm.

    I wish we had a stronger transit system. When I travel to Europe I’m always envious of the travel options. Here we mostly drive or fly to get around the country. Rail and bus travel are lesser options.

    Like Australia, Canada is spread out over wide terrain, a lot of it uninhabited. It’s 4,200 km from Toronto (central Canada) to Vancouver (west coast) and it’d take 41 hours of driving – part of it thru US because that’s a shorter route. This is definitely NOT a week-end trip. By plane its five hour ride.

    In Toronto, a week-end escape to cottage country is a 2.5 hour drve without traffic. But on summer week-ends it can take 2 hours just to get out of the city. There only one major high-way out and it gets very busy, worse if there’s an accident.

    Here on Vancouver Island, my idea of a short excursion is going to the mainland … that’s a 3 hour drive to Nanaimo followed by a 2 hour ferry ride to the Tsawwassen and then a 40 minutes drive to into the city of Vancouver.

    Adding it all up, it’s as long as taking a flight back to Toronto! 😬

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    1. The comparisons between Australia and Canada are surprisingly similar, albeit with a different climate. I hadn’t thought about that before. Like Canadians, it takes over five hours flying to cross our country. And there is so little in between. Train takes around five days! Needless to say not many drive. Who wants to see saltbush and red sand? Not me. The separation between western and eastern Australia is stark, to the point that Western Australians kind of see themselves as completely separate at least in their heads. I may have mentioned that they take about the rest of the country in terms like: back east. Over in the east. I think Chris Riley and I have talked about this mindset before. Is it like this in Canada too?

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      1. There is a regional mindset for sure. Part of it is geographical, partly historical and political. Most provinces seem united in their disdain for Toronto-nians … something Torontonians acknowledge only if they ever leave the city 😉

        British Columbians think of Ontario (where Toronto & the Canadian capital Ottawa is) as eastern Canada. There’s actually a couple more provinces east of that … it takes seven hours to fly coast to coast!

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      2. The regional mindset you speak of is indeed a curious one. It only just dawned on me that Canadian provinces have interesting names, whereas most of ours are western Australia, South Australia, Northern territory. Pretty unimaginative! Although at least there aree have three interesting ones. Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland.

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      3. The unusual ones are typically based on Indigenous names (eg. Toronto, Ottawa, Saskachewan, Ucluelet.) The others are either named after English regions or royalty (eg. Victoria, Alberta, York) or explorers (eg. Vancouver)

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  21. I do like road trips, though I’ve never done one on the scale of an Australian road trip. Here, round-the-island tours are offered and they last 12 hours or more depending on how often and how long they stop for. It’s a huge difference from when I grew up. We lived on a farm in the southwest of England. It was 6 miles from the nearest town and we never went there more than once a week. Same for the beach, 10 miles away!

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  23. Wow!
    Yes, “let’s have a quick visit to Cairns” – this would have been me before I visited New South Wales & Queensland 25 years ago. Spending only 10 days there so of course we flew from Sydney to Cairns then a short road trip to Karunda.
    It’s so hard to grasp the scale and size of your country when you live in little England, UK 😀

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    1. I am sure it is difficult to imagine the size and distances we must travel, Margaret. However, the population density in the UK, sounds like it may not necessarily be a faster journey, even though the distance travelled is shorter.

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      1. Yes! It’s often congestion, congestion and congestion! 🙄 So travelling late at night is often a solution that can result in a traffic free journey. 😊

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  25. That is so funny, to me, that people come to Australia with that mindset. It is on a smaller scale but I felt similarly when I lived in Houston, Texas for grad school. Texas is pretty big (again, not on the same scale as Australia) and I always felt like I was sort of “trapped” there due to the fact that it would take hours and hours to get myself anywhere (in a car) that I would want to be. I did take a friend on a 6000 mile road trip from Houston where we drove up through Utah and went to Glacier National Park up on the Canadian border, then over to Seattle and down through San Francisco before eventually turning to visit my family in Phoenix, Arizona before finally getting back to Houston. I also drove to and from NY from Houston (a friend was going to move up and go to Bard Collage to get a second Master’s degree before deciding, when we got there, to turn around and drive back to Houston (I was supposed to fly home but instead we got back into the vehicles — her in her car and me in the U-Haul — and slogged back). Now that I live in Oslo, Norway, I do think of the countries in Europe sort of like states back in the US, in terms of going on a road trip (which we do actually quite a lot — it definitely takes proper planning and a realistic sense of how long it really takes to get places). Strangely, within Norway, it takes longer to drive places than one might expect due to the mountains, the crazy coastline and, most of all, the very crappy roads (narrow and winding) in much of the country. Give me an interstate highway in the US any day. Well, actually, I take that back. Since living in Norway, I have visited my homeland and done a couple more road trips there. With many 18-wheelers and poor drivers who hog the left lane, if there is a high volume of traffic even an interstate highway can’t help to move things along. But, to answer your question, we have gone pretty far now and again, to get somewhere on a “long weekend” trip. What about you?

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    1. Sorry for the delay in replying to this wonderfully detailed comment, Kewtie, but weirdly, I found it in spam. It is now restored to its rightful place on the post – from May! Obviously I haven’t checked the spam folder for a while.
      Having been driven around much of central, southern and western Norway, I agree with you. The distances don’t look so far as the crow flies but it takes forever. One year I was almost snowed into Alesund after a hurricane and the only way to get to Oslo was a bus from Andalsnes. The only mountain road open. It took us ten hours to get to Oslo. My daughter – then around 12 hates buses and long journeys since that day. But that sounds nothing compared to your long road trips around US and to New York and then back again! Wow! How many times did you have to fill up with petrol? Europe certainly seems like states in comparison.
      You may not remember, but you asked me how far we have been on a weekend trip and I would say five hours drive. My son was learning to drive and needed to build up some learner hours with me supervising before his test for his drivers license which he had already booked. We drove to Coffs Harbour from Brisbane, stayed overnight and then drove home via Byron Bay and the Gold coast. It was a long weekend and he had to take breaks every couple of hours, which of course, is a good thing to do anyway.

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      1. Wow, your Ålesund experience sounds crazy – and actually kind of typical for winter in Norway at the same time. Winter storms can really wreak havoc, especially as there aren’t so many road options (and those that exist don’t deserve the “E” in their title as they are some of the worst of the “European” highways I’ve experienced) to get around on. As for the US road trips, those were more than 20 years ago so I can’t recall the number of petrol stops. Now that we travel in our EV, which has a decent range, it’s actually always kind of nice to have to stop to charge. We travel with our smallish dog and it’s a great time to walk him and stretch our legs. Thanks for rescuing my overly long comment from spam. ☺️ And your reply!

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      2. I agree about the back roads of Norge but they are often more scenic or interesting. imagine the As for charging an Ev, it would be a great time to stretch and walk during long road trips. Something that is getting more imperative and even essential to me now. We used to travel half the length of the country twice a year for 8 hours at a time. Stopping only twice. I can’t do that anymore.

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  26. Canada is vast from coast to coast, but I live in a populated area, i would imagine that what we can enjoy most is the ability to drive a short distance and be outside built up areas. I treasure that ability. I am used to the comforts and convenience of urban living…but it is my drive out to the woodlands and open lands that can rejuvenate and recharge…. when “world weary” moments happen.

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  27. Yes, it is huge, I do know that but 16h drive and still in the same state..whoa. For a weekend trip around 3,5 hours, I’d say. But I can be abroad in less than an hour😉

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    1. You are so fortunate to have such a diversity of cultures and experiences so close at hand, Tanja. I suppose there are disadvantages too. It does make travel to other countries much easier and achievable for anyone living in your part of the world.

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  28. I hate driving so would not be travelling hours for any food items that is for sure! I use to have to commute 1.5hrs to university one way- and that has left me with a bitter taste about long distance travel!….or should I say short distance travel.

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  29. That is really too long. 😅 I can’t imagine. Back in Saudi one city to another takes 8 hours. Mostly because it’s just desert. But there’s an option for plane or now, train. 🙂 It’s difficult if in your case, there’s no other option but to drive. 🙂

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    1. There are train lines but they don’t cover all the country, Gilian. Especially in the interior of Australia, they ripped up railway lines when cars became mainstream. In hindsight it was counter. -intuitive. Driving 8 hours in the desert sounds particularly numbing. Did you have to do that often?

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      1. No. Only for business trips. 🙂 It was fun when we were doing it, but now that we are looking at it from an outsider’s perspective, I keep saying “oh wow, what we did was dangerous.” Haha I mean in the desert for long hours without a gas station nearby. 😅

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  30. My older sister lived in WA many years ago and then moved to Tasmania. My mother who lived in NZ asked me once if we managed to catch often after she moved. She couldn’t grasp that it wasn’t close enough for at least a weekend visit. Around the same time my younger sister had in-laws living in Mackay, QLD, whom she planned on visiting. She was so excited thinking she could catch up with me while there!

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  31. My Japanese friends often want to the big three in a week.

    Gold Coast
    Sydney
    Uluru

    I say pick one. Two will take a week. Three requires much more time.

    And then they’ll ask me if I can drive them there.

    -Michael

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