Sydney, where the crossing starts

The depot at Caringbah

The Sydney depot is at 23-25 Erskine Road, Caringbah, in the Sutherland Shire. Office hours are 09:00 to 15:00 Monday to Friday, and 09:00 to 11:00 on Saturday. The office is closed on Sunday.

Caringbah is a suburban address, not an airport counter. If you land at Sydney Airport and expect to walk out to a desk, the transfer is a train or a taxi south, not a corridor. Plan the arrival around the office hours rather than around the flight. The counter at Caringbah is the one to plan around, and campervan hire Sydney sets out its hours and what is kept there.

The depot lists after-hours collection and return as available. Confirm the arrangement when you book, because a suburban depot with a small office window is a different proposition from a twenty-four-hour counter.

What this depot is for

This is a collection and return point for trips that begin in New South Wales. Most people who collect here are going one of two ways: south along the coast, or west across the continent towards the North West Cape.

The second group is the one that matters for this site. A crossing of Australia is not a coastal run with long days in it. It is a series of long days, and the vehicle you choose in Caringbah is the vehicle you have at the Yardie Creek crossing, a continent later. That is the argument for fixing the route before the vehicle, and campervan hire locations around Australia is the honest starting point, because where the trip ends changes what the first day looks like.

Before you point it west

The Sutherland Shire is a poor place to be in a hurry. Four things sit within an hour of the depot, and all four are worth the delay.

Royal National Park. Australia's first national park, gazetted in 1879. The sealed road runs through it to Audley, where you can hire a rowboat on the Hacking River, and on to Wattamolla and Garie Beach. The park charges a vehicle entry fee.

Cape Solander. A whale-watching platform inside Kamay Botany Bay National Park, at the southern headland of the bay. Humpbacks pass on the northern migration between May and November, and the platform is built for exactly this: a flat ledge above deep water, with the animals close enough to see without binoculars.

Cronulla and the Bundeena ferry. The beach is a surf beach with a rock pool at the south end. The ferry across Port Hacking to Bundeena takes about half an hour and lands inside the national park, which makes it the only way to arrive at a trailhead without driving.

The coast road south. The Grand Pacific Drive runs from the shire south through the Illawarra escarpment and the Sea Cliff Bridge. It is a sealed road with a lot of corners, and it is the natural first day if the plan is to travel south before turning west.

The numbers you need before the crossing

There is no short version of Sydney to Exmouth. The road distance depends on the line you take, and the honest planning unit is weeks rather than days.

Three things are worth settling in Sydney rather than later. First, water capacity: the dry stages of the crossing are long, and a vehicle that carries its own water is a different vehicle. Second, the spare and the tools, because the middle of the country does not stock parts for a campervan. Third, a park pass plan for Western Australia, since Cape Range National Park charges entry and a pass covers it.