Best outback Aussie road trips in ordinary cars for non nomads

The criteria are simple and selfish: at least 1000km, zero EV charging hope, no tourist traps and in an ordinary car suitable for non-nomads. Here are my best Australian road trips.

Zero EV charging hope and less tourist traps await.

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Here’s our pick of the best Australian road trips. The criteria are simple and selfish: at least 1000km, zero EV charging hope, no tourist traps, using an ordinary car, particularly suitable for non-nomads and driven by the Sultan and me. More road trips next week.

Ancient rocks meet $180 pub rooms and rogue giraffes

Where: Adelaide through the Flinders Ranges to Wilpena Pound to Broken Hill to Melbourne or Sydney: About 2000km.

Wilpena Pound is about 800 million years old (same age as me after a reasonable night out). It’s basically a big natural amphitheatre that you can walk around looking at natural stuff. Flying in a light plane is better. Broken Hill is one of the great little Australian cities with galleries, restaurants, mining and train stuff and drag bingo. Stay at the Silverton pub for about $180 a night. Then just down the road is Naomi and Stephen Schmidt’s Eldee Station which is super for kiddies of all ages. $170 for the suite.

Then to Sydney or Melbourne. Warning: Don’t drive through the Flinders Ranges at night. The road is chockers with wildlife. Wallabies, kangas, emus, dragons, echidnas and Mick swears he has seen giraffes and tigers.

Mystical rocks, feral grills, and underground everything

Where:Alice Springs to Uluru to Oodnadatta to Coober Pedy: About 1400km one way.

Alice to Uluru is an easy drive. Walk around the Rock, it really is mystical with or without stimulants.

Spend the best $300 ever for the dinner under the stars with a free star spotter. At Oodnadatta stay at the Pink Roadhouse ($190).

Eat the feral mixed grill of camel sausage, emu mignon and kangaroo fillet ($52) at the Prairie Hotel in Parachilna. Take cash to Coober Pedy.

All the action is underground the moon landscape because that’s where the opals and the miners live. Stay underground at the Desert Cave Hotel for $200.

Alice to Uluru is an easy drive. Picture: Getty Images

Let’s talk electrics

Blame the battery, not your car (unless it’s a BMW 7 series). Let’s talk electrics, but not EV electrics, good old-fashioned batteries.

A few readers (two) and your columnist have had a few starting problems lately. Car, not naughty bits. These days there are lots of drainers hiding all over your car. Parasites like car alarms, dashcams, interior lights and portable Eskys (for your travellers). If you don’t drive it, your battery goes flat very quickly.

But a small warning here. Sometimes your new battery has been sitting on a shelf somewhere for too long and it goes stale. Anyway, after a while your BMW 7 won’t start. (Actually, there are over 51,000 reasons a BMW 7 series won’t start but let’s blame the battery this time.) Here’s what happens. Your mobile battery person will attach a scientific looking gizmo to the battery and with a sad look say: “Your battery is fudged it must be the alternator let me replace both.” Like in the Bible, batteries declared dead can come back to life. If you have to buy a new one, holler for a Century. They are the Lexus of batteries.

The return of midnight spares: Urban foraging for front panels

Good to see Midnight Spares is back in business in the bayside suburbs of Melbourne. Small teams of specialist mechanics are quietly touring the streets in the early hours of the morning filling orders with surgical precision for doors, front panels, serious tyres and grilles.

Of course, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to work out who the low-cost spares business is supplying. Of course it’s a virtuous circle. Midnight Spares supply the panel beaters who are fixing the cars which are missing the parts that the team have nicked.

AC/DC to rock the Grand Final, amyl to blow minds

Make a booking now to see the world’s greatest rock band AC/DC playing the Adelaide Grand Final which is not a football game but a supercar event. Better still three of the lads are of an age the makes Adelaide’s best-known rocker, Michael McMichael, look like Taylor Swift. The Sultan is said to be lobbying the pensioner musicians to play a secret gig at the Kensi Sunday Sessions. With $9 craft tinnies and live tunes, lead chanteuse Brian Johnson, 79, of Sarasota, Florida, is keen on the idea. “Hotel, motel, make you wanna cry, but the Kensi is great that’s no lie” he telexed Michael.

Backing up the pensioners are the Australian quartet Amyl & The Sniffers. The Sniffers are 70 per cent younger than the pensioners and ditties like Balaclava Lover Boogie and Blowjobs have led them to international success.

Moses, mountains and market trends

Now that the Canberra Commies are going to confiscate your super, my advice is spend up big on a diversified portfolio that is 80 per cent cars, a few paintings and some other stuff.

In the other stuff can we recommend the two red granite tablets with the Ten Commandments inscribed on them in early Canaanite script. Carved from granite these are the actual tablets Moses Heston carried down from Mount Sinai and spoiled everyone’s fun. At Heritage auctions they have a starting bid of $100,000. The biblical golden calf is also available for about $20k.

As you know (Moses, 80, of Burning Bush) was happy to see the Israelites idolising the calf so he pulverised it and made them Israelites drink the mixture. At Heritage auctions July 15. (https://www.ha.com/heritage-auctions-dallas-office.s)

Fast and dubious: Castle Hill’s cowboy in a Model T

Talking of F1, a 24-year-old driver cruising around the Sydney suburb of Castle Hill in a 1923 Ford Model T was pulled over allegedly detected travelling at 83km/h in a 60km/h zone. He returned a negative breath test. Police collected a secondary oral fluid sample, allegedly confirming the presence of cocaine and THC while also detecting methamphetamine.

The driver was issued a 24-hour prohibition notice and a defect notice for the vehicle. Police claim the vehicle had “multiple faults including non-functional brake lights and indicators” and “had been modified beyond factory specifications and was deemed unroadworthy”. The driver is now due to appear at Parramatta Local Court on August 14, 2025.

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