The Adelaide to Melbourne is a 5-day, 1,000 km drive from Adelaide to Melbourne by campervan. Any 2WD campervan is fine - it's rated easy. Best in Autumn (Mar-May) or Spring (Sep-Nov). Budget from about A$900 per person, plus roughly A$240 in fuel.
Some drives connect two cities; this one strings together a whole highlights reel of southern Australia. In five unhurried days the road from Adelaide to Melbourne carries you from the sinkholes and crayfish towns of the Limestone Coast, up into the sandstone ridges of the Grampians, and out onto the most photographed coastline in the country. It is one of the most varied campervan journeys you can make - and, because every kilometre is sealed and the towns sit close together, one of the easiest.
Five days is the sweet spot: long enough to walk to a mountain lookout, taste a Coonawarra cabernet and still linger over the Twelve Apostles, yet short enough that no day feels like a transit leg.
Morning among the vines of the Coonawarra, afternoon on a Grampians clifftop, and by the next evening the Southern Ocean breaking over limestone stacks. That’s the shape of this drive.
Why drive from Adelaide to Melbourne?
The pull of this route is its sheer range. You trade coastal lagoons for mountain gorges and then for one of the world’s great ocean roads, all in under a week. In the Grampians - Gariwerd to its Traditional Owners - you can hike to a giddy lookout in the morning and stand before rock art thousands of years old by afternoon; treat those sites with the respect they’re owed and leave them exactly as you find them.
Being a one-way run, it does mean a drop-off in Melbourne rather than a loop back, but the payoff is that you never retrace your tracks. Every day opens onto somewhere new, and the campervan gives you the freedom to chase the good light and pull over whenever a koala, a cellar door or an empty beach says stop.
Hire your campervan from Adelaide
From A$900 per person for 5 days. Compare the main operators:
Sort the essentials
The van, things to do along the way, and cover for the road - compare and lock each one in.
- 01Campervan
Hire a van from Adelaide
Book - 02Experiences
Tours & activities in Limestone Coast
Book - 03Insurance
Cover for your road trip
Book
Affiliate links - we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It never changes the price you pay.
Day by day
1,000 km total · about 14.5 hours behind the wheel across 5 days.
- 1
Adelaide to Robe
335 km · 3.5hSlip out of Adelaide and roll south across the rolling green Fleurieu Peninsula before the road runs alongside the Coorong - a shimmering ribbon of shallow lagoon alive with pelicans and black swans. By late afternoon you reach Robe, a salt-worn fishing town of heritage cottages, where a walk along the wide sweep of Long Beach and a plate of fresh crayfish end the day.
Highlights Fleurieu Peninsula · Coorong National Park · Long Beach, Robe
Stay Discovery Parks - Robe · from A$40/nightcheck availability
- 2
Robe to Halls Gap
300 km · 3.5hTurn inland and cross the border into Victoria through the Coonawarra, where cabernet vines grow in a narrow seam of rust-red terra rossa soil - worth a mid-morning cellar-door stop. The land lifts as you near Halls Gap, the sandstone ramparts of the Grampians rising sharp against the sky. Kangaroos graze the campground verges at dusk.
Highlights Coonawarra wine region · Grampians National Park (Gariwerd)
Stay BIG4 NRMA Halls Gap Holiday Park · from A$45/nightcheck availability
- 3
Exploring the Grampians
60 km · 1.5hA full day among the peaks of Gariwerd. Climb the rocky staircase to The Pinnacle for a giddy view over the valley, then cool off in the spray of MacKenzie Falls tumbling into its fern-lined gorge. Boroka Lookout hands you a sweeping panorama for almost no effort. Round out the day at the Bunjil's Shelter and Gulgurn Manja rock-art sites, ancient paintings held sacred by the Traditional Owners - look, learn, and leave them untouched.
Highlights The Pinnacle · MacKenzie Falls · Boroka Lookout · Bunjil's Shelter rock art
Stay BIG4 NRMA Halls Gap Holiday Park · from A$45/nightcheck availability
- 4
Halls Gap to Apollo Bay
190 km · 3hDrop out of the mountains and steer for the coast, joining the Great Ocean Road at its most famous turn - the Twelve Apostles, a line of limestone stacks standing golden in the surf. Nearby, the sheer walls of Loch Ard Gorge carry the ghosts of a shipwreck. From there the road curls east through the dripping fern gullies of the Great Otway National Park to the fishing town of Apollo Bay.
Highlights Twelve Apostles · Loch Ard Gorge · Great Otway National Park
Stay BIG4 Apollo Bay Pisces Holiday Park · from A$50/nightcheck availability
- 5
Apollo Bay to Melbourne
190 km · 3hSave the best driving for last: the cliff-hugging run from Apollo Bay to Lorne, ocean glittering on your right the whole way. Pull over at Kennett River to spot koalas dozing in the roadside gums, linger over coffee in buzzy Lorne, then salute the legendary surf break at Bells Beach before the road turns inland and delivers you into Melbourne.
Highlights Kennett River koalas · Lorne · Bells Beach