Australia: Sydney, the Outback and the Great Barrier Reef
I landed in Sydney jet-lagged and grinning, and the city did the rest. There's that first walk around Circular Quay where the whole postcard assembles itself in front of you — the white sails of the Opera House catching the morning, the Harbour Bridge arcing over a harbour full of ferries, the light bouncing off the water so hard you squint. I'd come for a country that calls itself a continent, and within an hour I understood the ambition: this was going to be a trip measured in flights, not afternoons.
Because that's the thing nobody quite prepares you for. Australia is enormous in a way the map flattens. The distances aren't long, they're absurd — a drive that looks like a finger's width on the screen is a full day, and crossing the country means an internal flight, not a determined morning. So I made my peace with it early: a few hubs, a few long roads, a couple of Qantas and Jetstar hops to stitch the impossible parts together, and a campervan for the bits in between.
Sydney, the harbour and a road south
I gave Sydney three days and could have given it ten. I swam at Bondi before breakfast, did the cliff walk to Coogee with the Pacific heaving below, took the ferry to Manly just to be on the water. Then I picked up a campervan and pointed it at Melbourne — and here came lesson one of driving in Australia: it's on the left. Roundabouts felt like a personal attack for the first hour, the wipers came on every time I meant to indicate, and then, somewhere on the open road, it clicked and I forgot I'd ever driven any other way.
South of Melbourne, the Great Ocean Road is the drive everyone promises you and it delivers. It hugs the coast through surf towns and eucalyptus forest until you reach the Twelve Apostles — those limestone stacks standing offshore in the Southern Ocean, gold at sunset, the wind trying to take your hat. There are fewer than twelve now; the sea keeps reclaiming them, one collapse at a time. I stood at the railing far too long, watching the swell explode against rock that won't be there forever.
« Out here the country stops being scenery and starts being weather, distance and silence. »
Here's the honest part about staying connected, and it shaped how I travelled. Australia is well outside the EU, so a European roam-like-at-home plan is no use here — I sorted local data before I flew. Along the east coast and around the cities the signal was genuinely good. But the moment the road emptied out, so did the bars. I'd downloaded offline maps the night before each big leg, and on the Great Ocean Road that meant I could just drive and stop and look, instead of refreshing a dead screen on a clifftop.
The red centre, and a rock that asks for respect
You don't drive to Uluru on a whim — it sits deep in the centre, and I flew in. Nothing readies you for the colour. The rock changes through the day, ochre to rust to a burning red at sunset, alone on a flat horizon that goes on without apology. It's a sacred site to the Anangu, the traditional owners, and since 2019 you can no longer climb it — a decision I'd defend to anyone. You walk the base instead, slowly, past waterholes and rock art, and the not-climbing turns out to be the whole point: you're a guest here, not a conqueror.
This is where the country's emptiness gets real. Out in the centre and across the Outback, mobile coverage is sparse to non-existent — vast white zones where no network reaches, and where Telstra tends to have the best rural footprint if you're choosing. I treated an offline map not as a nice-to-have but as basic kit, told people roughly when to expect me back in range, and carried more water than I thought I'd need. The silence out there is total, and that's exactly what you came for — but you plan around it, you don't gamble on it.
The reef, and a careful word about it
I ended on the Great Barrier Reef, flying up to Cairns and out to the water. Snorkelling there is its own kind of overwhelm — you put your face in and a whole city unfolds, coral in shapes you don't have words for, fish in colours that feel made up, a turtle gliding past like it owns the place. It is genuinely one of the great things I've ever seen, and I want to be honest about it too: parts of the reef have suffered repeated coral bleaching as the water warms, and the difference between a thriving patch and a pale one is visible to an amateur like me. Go, by all means — go with a good operator, go gently, and go knowing it's a living thing under real pressure.
Between all this there were kangaroos at dusk on a quiet verge, a koala dozing in a fork of gum tree, a flat white in a town of two hundred people, and prices that reminded me the Australian dollar adds up fast. The country never quite let me settle — there was always another flight, another long road — but that restlessness was the trip. You don't see Australia. You cross it.
📶 Sarah's tip
On an Australian road trip your phone is your co-pilot, so sort it before you ever pick up the van. Australia is outside the EU, so a European roam-like-at-home plan won't follow you here — set up local data and download offline maps of every leg while you're still on solid wifi. Expect good coverage along the east coast and in the cities, and large dead zones across the Outback and the red centre, where Telstra tends to reach furthest. Check your phone's compatibility in 30 seconds here and find your plan on the destinations page (for a broader European trip, an EU/EEA plan works too).
What I take away
Australia isn't a place you tick off a list — it's a scale you adjust to. Long flights, longer roads, a harbour at one end and a red rock and a coral sea at the others. Keep your maps downloaded, keep your data ready for the cities, and let the empty centre stay empty. Some of my best moments there happened with no bars on the screen at all, on a verge at dusk, watching kangaroos and the whole continent going quiet around me.
— Sarah, somewhere on a long straight road with the radio fading out.