Sydney Travel Forum

We are thinking of doing a 31 day camping tour of the Outback to Ocean with AAT Kings. It goes from Sydney to Adelaide to Coober Peedee to Alice Springs up to Darwin over to Cairns and down the Gold Coast. We would be doing this in Nov.08. Has anyone done this tour? I was wondering what the weather would be in the various area. eg outback / rainforest / beach. Please let me know all the infor you may know. Thanks

Average temperatures minimum and maximum in Celcius.
Syd. 16-23, Adel. 13-26, Coober Pedy 30, Alice Sp. 18-34, Darwin 26-34, Cairns 22-30, Gold Coast 16-24.
Only a daytime temp. for Coober Pedy but I think at night it would be similar to Alice Springs.

I used AATKings for a 3-day trip to Uluru. Found them reliable and comfortable. That said, our guide was a bit lazy and not the best one to explain things. No real initiative shown and didn't always know answers to reasonable questions.

So the organization is good enough, but the guide is pot luck.

You will need clothes for summer conditions such as shorts and t-shirts as well as warmer clothes as nights in the desert can be very cold - I would suggest a fleecy tracksuit as you can use this as pyjamas or to wear to the shower blocks. You will really need to cover all eventualities, we did a similar trip but went around the west coast. I took a warm pullover, jeans, track suit, and summer gear, sneakers, and one slightly better outfit for going out at night. Also a warm parka.
AAT Kings have a good reputation but the tour guide is pot luck, I have done numerous bus tours and have had all sorts even with reputable companies, my last tour in Europe was very disappointing as the tour guide couldn,t have cared less about those passengers who didn,t do the optional tours. But with a good company this would have to be a rare occurrence as they don,t usually employ people who are rude to the passengers.

We did the same tour in Nov. of 05. It was hot, hot, hot! There were only two nights at the beginning of the trip where it even resembled being cool, so bringing warm clothes may not be necessary. We had several nights when we wet down our towels and put them on our air mattress to be cool enough to sleep. The farther north you went the hotter it got, and around the Darwin area it was also very humid. The heat was an issue for hiking and so on.
It was a wonderful trip. I'd do it again in a second. Although I have to admit I was rather tired of tents by the time we finished!