Wild RoadsAustralia
A wedge-tailed eagle and three black birds on an outback highway as a loaded four-wheel drive approaches Outback highway, July 2025

Van Life Australia

Van Life

Home is a small van in the bush. The neighbours are a wallaby, a currawong and a mob of magpies who want breakfast at dawn.

Life on the road

No fixed address

I live in my van, parked up in the Australian bush. It isn’t big and it isn’t fancy, but the view changes whenever I want it to.

From the van I head off on the bike, go looking for wildlife, or just point it down a road. In 2025 and early 2026 that meant the Red Centre, outback Queensland, the Victorian Alps and Tasmania.

Snow-covered tent glowing at sunset above a sea of cloud
  • Red ranges and green scrub under a blue sky
    Coming soon

    The Wild Roads Australia channel

    A new YouTube channel just for van life: the roads, the camps and the people and animals I meet along the way. It isn’t live yet.

    Meanwhile, watch Bikepacking365
  • Aerial view of a red sand track running through desert scrub
    Computer · keyboard · early build

    Camp by Dark

    Drive a Sprinter camper up the Stuart Highway in the Red Centre as the sun goes down. Roos, cattle, road trains and a storm rolling in. Make it to camp in one piece.

    Play Camp by Dark

Out on the road

Outback roads, alpine snow and the Tasmanian coast, by van, by bike and on foot. Tap a photo to see it big.

  • Aerial view of a red sand track running through desert scrub
    Red sand track near Finke, Northern Territory
  • A wedge-tailed eagle and three black birds on an outback highway as a loaded four-wheel drive approaches
    Outback highway, July 2025
  • Rocky range rising above spinifex plains under a grey sky
    The ranges of Central Australia
  • Snow-covered tent glowing at sunset above a sea of cloud
    Snow camp at sunset, Victorian Alps
  • Snow patches turning pink at sunrise on a mountain ridge
    First light on the snow, Victorian Alps
  • Twisted snow gum lit gold by the rising sun
    Snow gum at sunrise, Victorian Alps
  • Green and violet aurora over dark sea cliffs
    Aurora australis, Tasmania, January 2026
  • Cradle Mountain reflected in Dove Lake beside the old timber boatshed
    Cradle Mountain and the Dove Lake boatshed, Tasmania
  • Orange lichen boulders in front of the Hazards at Freycinet
    The Hazards, Freycinet, Tasmania
  • Towering dolerite column cliffs dropping into the sea
    Dolerite sea cliffs, Tasmania
  • Sea cliffs and headlands at sunset
    Sea cliffs at sunset, Tasmania
  • Tiered waterfall in green rainforest
    Rainforest falls, Tasmania
  • Red ranges and green scrub under a blue sky
    Central Australia, July 2025

Real campsites, real roads

Proper trip notes are on the way: where I camped, the state of the roads, where the water is and what I’d do differently.

Trip notes
View on Flickr