Big Red Tour: How to sleep in the Australian Outback.

B I G R E D T O U R

How to sleep in the Australian Outback

WHERE TO GO

LINKS
Ajungilak
The North Face

SLEEPING IN TOWN
A lot of outback travelling is done on the bitumen highways, transporting yourself between interesting areas. You also need to go into towns now and then to refuel and shop fresh food. And a beer on the local pub is not that bad either. In towns there are a number of alternatives for accomodation.
  Caravan parks. As long as the weather is warm, best choice is always the caravan parks. Some of them are grotty, sandy disasters run by tired and agressive people (Meekathara). Some of them have green grass, shady trees and friendly people (Kununnura centre). Sometimes I got a room, but mostly I regretted it and longed back to sleeping outside.
  Caravan parks often have on-site caravans that often are dirty and smelly. God knows what have been going on in there. Avoid.
  The Pubs. Pubs are called Hotels in Australia. You can mostly find accomodation at pubs, it's a prerequisite for an alcohol license. Beware that some pubs are very noisy, so you might not get the sleep you're after.
  In Broome, I made the mistake of staying in a room next to the pub stage. No sleep before three in the morning!
  Cheapest accomodation I found was in West Wyallong, only ten dollar per night. However, the pub owners sold drugs downstairs, so that was their real income.
  Units. Units is an outback speciality. This is containers re-built into a number of miniature iron cells. On a hot summer night they turn into a something that could have been though out by Edgar Allan Poe of one of his short stories. Better than a tent on a rainy night though. You're also better off in a unit in hostile places like Halls Creek.
  Motels. Expensive and / or dirty. Occassionaly good value for money, but mostly not.
  Backpacker places. Chocka blocka with kids. Sometimes they have value for money rooms.

There's nothing like sleeping out in the bush under the stars. If it was too cold or too many mozzies, I had to sleep in my tent. Sleeping outside is superior, I have a hard time understanding why people sleep in tents, cars or caravans if it's warm outside.

CAMPING BED
I slept on a stretcher, a camping bed as often as I could. The stretcher I invested in was a great buy, all though it was sometimes more of a "shrinker" than a stretcher when you set it up. I seldom saw other people use them which surprised me since I find them superior to other alternatives. I paid around AUS$ 90 for my camping bed.

SWAGS
Many Australians use a swag to sleep in. It's a true blue Aussie invention that consist of a sack of canvas that can be unzipped, with a mattress inside. The better swags are water-, cold- and mozzie proof, so there's no need for a tent. Some versions even are like a small tent. They are soft and comfortable to sleep in, but very bulky to transport. You more or less need a roof rack. The swags I had a look at costed around AUS$350-400.

SLEEPING BAG
My sleeping bag is a Norwegian Ajungilak, probably the best outdoor equipment I ever have bought. I use a travel sheet to protect the sleeping bag from getting dirty. The sleeping bag was a bit too hot in the summer, then I slept only in the sheet, but the Ajungilak was a beauty during winter.

TENT
I brought my small North Face mountaineering Starfire tent with me. I used it when the winter nights in the desert (-2C) made it impossible to sleep outside and when the mozzies where out in force in Kakadu. I used a kerosene storm lamp for light and warmth in the tent. You have to be extremely careful with that though, since a tent catches fire instantly.

MAT
In the tent, I slept on a thin mat. Had I known before hand how much I would have slept in the tent, then I would have invested in a Thermarest inflatable mat. The thin mat was too hard and cold to sleep on.

HAMMOCK
A hammock is very cheap and wonderful to hang in between two shady trees. Very good for the afternoon sleep when it's too hot for walking.