How to Drive to Australia... 

The purpose of our journey was primarily to transport ourselves and our car from England to Australia.  We had the added stipulation that we wanted to experience different countries and cultures on our way.  Without this second proviso, the obvious scenario in terms of time and costs, would be to containerise the vehicle and purchase air tickets!

Which way?

With start and end points fixed, which would be the best way to travel between them?

3 main options presented themselves to us: 

1. Europe, Middle East, Asia, Australia
2. Europe, Africa, Australia
3. USA, Central America, South America, Australia

Option 3 was the first to be ruled out:

• We have both travelled in the US before;
• The US do not participate in the Carnet agreement so special arrangements need to be made to temporarily import a vehicle; and
• Areas of Central and South America are politcally unstable with significant risk of kidnappings.

We were very tempted by Option 2 as we would both love to travel through Africa.  However, further investigation showed that:

• The Africa route would be impossible without flying at least one section as a result of the various civil wars raging on the continent.
• The volatility on African countries is such that it may be possible to pass through a country when you leave the UK, only to find that on arrival, the current situation means that travel is now impossible.
• We heard through friends, about a couple who had driven from South Africa to London, 6 months before us and had been imprisoned on 3 separate occaisions.  They had also been shot at and their Landrover now contains bullet holes!

Option 1 seemed to be the most appropriate, despite having its fair share of potential problems:

• Insurrection of Kurdish rebels in SE Turkey;
• Difficulties in obtaining an Iranian visa for any length of time;
• The coup in Pakistan, general lawlessness in large areas of Pakistan, hostility between India and Pakistan and general acts of terrorism by Moslem extremeists.

On the plus side for the Europe – Middle East – Asia route, we knew that this was an established ‘Overland Route’ which has been used since the 1950s and is still a popular option for those of an adventurous nature.  Overland Tour buses (well, trucks) such as ‘Encounter Overland’ and ‘Exodus’ use this route every year. 

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Which Countries? 

Having decided on the general direction of travel, we then had to decide on the more specific details of our route; like which countries we would be travelling through.  Our pre-trip route planning was not made any more detailed than this.  The decision of which towns to visit and how to get from A to B was made on a daily basis.  We had enough difficulties sticking to our daily plans.  Making a detailed plan in advance would have been a waste of time. 

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Western Europe

Our path through Western Europe was largely determined by friends who live dotted around Europe, by their and our timescale and by the places that we felt we had to see.  As a result of this, we took an extremely convoluted route. 

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Eastern Europe

Our travels through Eastern Europe were largely dictated by the necessity to avoid the troubled regions around the Former Yugoslavia, Serbia, Croatia, Kosovo etc.  In addition, I had always wished to visit Prague in the Czech Republic.  Thus, in Eastern Europe, our route took us through: Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. 

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The Middle East and Asia

This section of the journey offers fewer choices of routes owing to political situations and restricted border crossings.  We chose to travel straight across Turkey and into Iran, although it would have been possible to make detours to Syria and Jordan.  I also understand that it is possible to travel from Turkey into Georgia, given the right political atmosphere.  Once in Iran, the only option is to travel across the country to the border at Mir Jave and cross into Pakistan; Afghanistan, Iraq and Turkmenistan being places to avoid at the moment.  From Pakistan, there is one crossing point for foreigner at the Wagah Checkpoint near to Lahore and Amritsar.  We also planned to visit both Nepal and Sri Lanka if time permitted. 

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Onward Travel to South East Asia

We had hoped to travel overland as far as Singapore, before having to put the Landrover into a boat.  There are two potential ways to achieve this:

• Travel from India or Bangladesh into Burma
• Travel from India, Pakistan or Nepal into China

Both options require a great deal of time, patience, letter writing and contacts in the right places.  We gave up and admitted defeat, accepting the fact that we could travel India before shipping our car from Madras to Australia.  We decided that it would be too expensive to ship the vehicle to Malaysia so that we could explore SE Asia before shipping the car from Singapore to Australia. 

However, we have met people on our travels who were planning to attempt one or other of the mentioned options. 

One group of people had a contact in the Burmese High Commission and were confident that they had the correct permissions to travel through Burma.  That having been said, they still had to obtain the relevant permits to travel in that area of India.  If they managed to overcome that hurdle, they would still be faced with the fact that as far as I am aware, the only road joining India to Burma was built in the World War II and has not been maintained since then!  They would also have to pass through an area of Burma that is occupied by rebels and bandits. 

We have also heard that it is possible to take your own, foreign registered vehicle into China if you have a Chinese Escort.  I believe that this is quite costly, weighing in at something like US$250 per day.  I am not sure whether an escort is required throughout China or if it is just in restricted areas. 

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