The 10year plan

[Tank]

So 2 years ago Fiona my fantastic wife and I came up with the 10year plan. The plan is to load our Safari onto a ship and send it over to Australia so that we can spend 6 months driving around and exploring. Last year we also had 2 couples who we have done more than a few trips with join on the plan as well. The good news is that now gives us 3 Safaris all manual, TD42's, 24volt, running 2"lift and 33"muds.
I thought I would start this thread so that I can get some input on were we should go, what we do and don't need and anything else that pops up.

The only set trip that we have so far is that we want to go up to Cape York as from what we have seen via YouTube etc it looks amazing. We are very open to ideas of were to go.

The trucks that we intend to bring over are all Nissan Safaris, 1 low roof and 2 high roofs, all running TD42 with manual boxes,

So any advice ideas are welcome

[BigRAWesty]

Sounds like you guys have it sorted.
But I highly doubt 6 will surfice your buds lol.
Were will you be landing the cars to??

[threedogs]

Do you plan on going clockwise or anti clockwise.
Australia has the lot from rain forests to desert,
and dont forget Tasmania Id forgotten how beautiful
Tassie is

[Chubba]

G'day Tank.
So this is in prep for a trip in 8 years time. Wow,Talk about being prepared.
Anyway my big lap trip would have to include the Horizontal Fall in Talbot Bay and the Karijini National Park both in the north west of Western Australia. It is remote country so you would need to be well prepared and it's also a long way from the Cape. You will get so many ideas and destinations from this forum that you won't know what to do with them all. Good luck and good on yah. It will be epic.

[Tank]

Sounds like you guys have it sorted.
But I highly doubt 6 will surfice your buds lol.
Were will you be landing the cars to??

We are planning on landing the cars in Sydney as this will help us to keep the transport costs down.
The main reason for the 6 months is that we can have the vehicles in Aussie for 6 months without having to many issues with having to comply to Australian regs

[Tank]

Do you plan on going clockwise or anti clockwise.
Australia has the lot from rain forests to desert,
and dont forget Tasmania Id forgotten how beautiful
Tassie is

The thinking is that we will probably go anti clockwise and head to the Cape first, we are ever open to input on this. Not to worried about getting to Tasmania as it may stretch our time frame abit too much and it looks very similar to our West Coast on the South Island which is 2 hours from home. We mostly drive mud and rivers here but in the summer we also spend a lot of time in the high country

[Tank]

G'day Tank.
So this is in prep for a trip in 8 years time. Wow,Talk about being prepared.
Anyway my big lap trip would have to include the Horizontal Fall in Talbot Bay and the Karijini National Park both in the north west of Western Australia. It is remote country so you would need to be well prepared and it's also a long way from the Cape. You will get so many ideas and destinations from this forum that you won't know what to do with them all. Good luck and good on yah. It will be epic.

Yep 8 years is still along way away and a large part of the time frame is around getting our kids through school and being able to get the funds well sorted so that we don't have to cut out things that we want to do and also to allow us a buffer incase we have a major.
Thanks for your suggestions on some places to go I will add them on to the list

[Cuppa]

Bugger I typed out one of my infamous lengthy replies & then lost it in the ether. Grrr

Westy is right - 6 months is simply not long enough. You need at least a year. Anything less & you’ll see more white lines than anything else ..... unless you restrict yourself to just one or two areas of the country. For a trip of a lifetime 8 years in the planning don’t sell yourself short & regret it.

In terms of costs, I reckon you would find it much cheaper to buy a vehicle here & sell it when you leave.

Planning is a major & enjoyable part of the trip - but don’t ‘over plan’. We (Wife & I) spent 5 years saving, preparing & planning for our 18 month trip around the block & some of the highlights were the unplanned & unexpected. Eg. Everyone told us that Karijini NP was a ‘don’t miss’ destination, so we always knew we would be going there, but I deliberately avoided learning anything about the place until we got there. People were right, it blew us away. Would still have been good if we knew what we were going to, but making it a surprise made it better still I reckon. And then there are the things that happen as a result of turning left instead of right, spur of the moment decisions. This is another reason why a longer time frame makes sense, otherwise you get locked into a schedule.

We are now into year 6 of another 5 year plan formulated following our return from the 18 month jaunt. Red dirt is addictive, once experienced it won’t let you go. I dream of remote bits of Kimberley paradise, Arnhemland paradise, desert tracks & in fact anything north or outback. When we head off again we hope it will be for ‘as long as it takes’/ for the rest of our lives’. Hoping 2016 will see us back on the road living the gypsy lifestyle. It will be very different second time around, there has been, & will be very little planning. Preparation yes, but the ‘plan’ is to ‘make it up as we go along’. Obviously there will need to be some more detailed planning when taking the more remote routes like the Canning Stock route, but that planning will happen along the way as required. The real aim is ’travel without time limit’. We thought 18 months would allow for that, but 18 months is a time frame & I well recall the feeling at the 9 month mark that we were now on the ‘homeward leg’. And the time goes so quickly!

We’ll be using a TD42T & Tvan this time around, enabling us to both get to more remote, off the beaten track places, but also to be able to get that extra kilometre along the river bank where others can’t reach.

If 6 months is really your limit I would suggest that you choose a maximum of a half lap & if choosing ‘half a lap’ I would probably have to make it WA.

You may be interested in reading my blog, kept throughout our previous trip. I would also suggest keeping one yourself. It can be a bit of a chore at times, but it’ll pay you back in spades. I still read mine now & again & it brings back so many memories, those written about as well as others. You think you’ll remember it all, but so much gets forgotten. Having a record is so worthwhile & if you have an ‘audience’ who read it as you go it not only helps with the motivation to write it, but also leads to many opportunities which would otherwise be missed. I managed to garner a regular readership & frequently had offers of places to stay, or suggestions on good camp spots, or places known only to locals to visit. http://www.cuppa500.com/_Big_Trip/Archive.html