Firstly, prepare a list of things that you need to bring with you on your holiday and check it thoroughly before leaving home.
Leaving your passport, credit cards or licence at home would be a disastrous start to your holiday! We strongly recommend you obtain personal health and general travel insurance before you depart for Australia.
A good book on touring Australia will help you get the most out of your trip. It will tell you about tourist destinations, what to expect when you get there, accommodation, and places to eat and just about everything else. There are dozens of books and web sites out there but I recommend the Australia Motorcycle Atlas from Hema Maps.
This road atlas has 200 top rides throughout Australia and each of these rides has a full page devoted to it at the start of the book. Each ride is described with respect to what to see and all the features and each ride is referenced back to the totally revised Road Atlas. It is spiral bound with a plastic sleeve for protection and easy viewing. Bikescape also has this atlas available for purchase for AU$34.95 each.
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Animals and traveling at night:
The rule for traveling at night, dawn and dusk is simple – don’t! Animals feed at this time and hitting a kangaroo, camel or wombat will hurt a lot (or worse) and almost certainly wreck your bike. Not a nice way to end a trip. The kangaroos often like to lie in the road to soak up the warmth as the sun goes down, so keep your eyes peeled for the sunbathing critters!
You should also watch out for large birds (often wedge tailed eagles) on road kill. They don’t like to leave their food and sometimes fly off at the last second in your direction. An eagle with a wing span of 9 feet will hurt a lot if you hit it! The same is true of emus. When panicked they can run along the side of the road, turn suddenly and run across your path. Whatever the animal, slow down and make sure it is out of harms way before you pass.
Spiders scare the bejeezers out of me. Just how common and how big are spiders in Australia?
Despite the fears (particularly among the English, it seems) of Australia being overrun with gigantic spiders, snakes and other such deadly creatures, they’re not actually that common. At least, not in plague proportions or anything.
In urban areas, snakes are pretty rare. You’d almost certainly have to go looking hard to find any, and if you’re foolish enough to stomping about in long grass with no foot or leg protection, then you might get into some trouble.
Spiders are less rare, but most of the really scary big ones (eg huntsman) are relatively harmless, at least physically. (I’m not going to argue that psychologically they might scare the crap out of you… they certainly have that affect on me.) The few dangerous spiders tend to be the smaller ones such as the redback and the Sydney funnelweb.
A survey by the ABS showed a mere 1.2% of the population noted bite or sting in the previous four weeks. The figures included bites from snakes, spiders, dogs, but not insects such as mosquitos. It doesn’t comment on whether bites from small children or other humans were included.
Under 15% of those bitten resulted in poisoning.
While it always pays to be aware of your surroundings, and not to place yourself in danger of bites from snakes or spiders or man-eating tigers, none of them are common, and shouldn’t hold you back having a good time visiting. And carry a big stick if it makes you feel safer.
PS. Spiders scare the bejeezers out of me too.
