The Darwin to Uluru is a 10-day, 2,000 km drive from Darwin to Yulara by campervan. Any 2WD campervan is fine - it's rated moderate. Best in Autumn (Mar-May) or Winter (Jun-Aug). Budget from about A$2,000 per person, plus roughly A$560 in fuel.
Somewhere south of Katherine the tropics let go. The mango trees and monsoon greens of the Top End thin into spinifex and red earth, the horizon flattens, and the Stuart Highway runs so straight it seems to meet the sky. This is the Explorers Way - the great vertical corridor that splits the continent, following the route John McDouall Stuart hacked north in the 1860s for the Overland Telegraph. Drive it in a campervan and you cross an entire climate, from croc-filled gorges to the burning heart of the Red Centre, ending at the most sacred rock in Australia.
Ten days is the honest minimum. The distances out here are enormous and the temptation is to knock them over in marathon stints, but the Territory rewards the traveller who lingers - who soaks twice at Bitter Springs, who waits out the sunset among the boulders of Karlu Karlu, who gives Uluru a full unhurried day rather than a single photo.
Out here the road does the talking. A thousand kilometres of straight bitumen, a fuel stop that doubles as a legend, and a red rock at the end that has been sacred for longer than any road has existed.
Why drive the Explorers Way?
Because nowhere else in Australia stacks this much contrast into one tank-emptying line on the map. You begin the morning canoeing beneath the sheer walls of Nitmiluk and end the week walking the base of Uluru at dawn. In between come thermal springs, gold-rush pubs, desert ranges glowing at first light, and roadhouses where the counter meal comes with decades of scrawled history on the walls.
It is remote, but it is not hard: the highway is sealed the whole way, the towns are spaced for refuelling, and a campervan turns the vast distances into an asset rather than a chore - you carry your bed, your kitchen and your water across the middle of the continent. Travel it in the dry season, respect the country and its Traditional Owners, and the Explorers Way delivers the outback exactly as it lives in the imagination.
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Day by day
2,000 km total · about 26.5 hours behind the wheel across 10 days.
- 1
Darwin
0 kmPick up the van in the Top End capital and shake off the flight. Darwin is all mango trees, deep harbour light and open-air markets - wander the WWII-era waterfront, cool off in the Wave Lagoon, then time sunset for Mindil Beach as the laksa stalls fire up. Provision heavily here; the shelves get thinner and dearer the further south you drive.
Highlights Darwin Waterfront · Mindil Beach Sunset Market · Museum & Art Gallery of the NT
Stay Discovery Parks - Darwin · from A$52/nightcheck availability
- 2
Darwin to Katherine
320 km · 3.5hPoint the van south down the Stuart Highway and watch the tropics unspool into open savannah. Break the 320 km run at Adelaide River or Edith Falls, then roll into Katherine, the frontier town that guards the mouth of Nitmiluk Gorge. Set up camp early so tomorrow belongs entirely to the water.
Highlights Edith Falls · Katherine township · Nitmiluk Visitor Centre
Stay Nitmiluk Caravan Park & Campground · from A$40/nightcheck availability
- 3
Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge)
60 km · 1hA whole day for the thirteen sandstone gorges of Nitmiluk, carved by the Katherine River through country that has belonged to the Jawoyn people for millennia. Paddle a hire canoe between sheer red walls, take the dawn cruise, or climb the Baruwei Loop for the long view. Freshwater crocodiles bask on the sandbars; keep your swim to the marked plunge pools.
Highlights Katherine Gorge cruise · Canoeing the first gorge · Baruwei Lookout
Stay Nitmiluk Caravan Park & Campground · from A$40/nightcheck availability
- 4
Katherine to Mataranka
110 km · 1.5hA short, easy leg south to where the red-ochre outback first meets the tropical palms. Slip into the crystal-clear thermal channel at Bitter Springs and let the 34-degree current carry you between paperbarks, then soak again at the Mataranka pool inside Elsey National Park. It is the last truly lush water for a very long time.
Highlights Bitter Springs · Mataranka Thermal Pool · Elsey National Park
Stay Bitter Springs Cabins & Camping · from A$38/nightcheck availability
- 5
Mataranka to Tennant Creek
560 km · 6hThe big transit day, and a rite of passage. Nearly 560 km of dead-straight bitumen unfurls through spinifex and cattle country, punctuated by outback pubs that are destinations in themselves - swing into the Daly Waters Pub, the most famous watering hole in the Territory, for a counter meal beneath the bras and number plates. Reach Tennant Creek, gold-rush town of the 1930s, by evening.
Highlights Daly Waters Pub · Newcastle Waters · Battery Hill Mining Centre
Stay Tennant Creek Caravan Park · from A$35/nightcheck availability
- 6
Tennant Creek to Karlu Karlu (Devils Marbles)
105 km · 1.5hAn easy 105 km south drops you at one of the outback's strangest sights: the giant granite boulders of Karlu Karlu, split and stacked as if left behind by giants. Sacred to the Warumungu, Kaytetye and other Traditional Owners, they glow blood-red at sunset. Camp right among them and wait for the desert sky to fill with more stars than you knew existed.
Highlights Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles · Sunset over the boulders · Wycliffe Well UFO stop
Stay Karlu Karlu / Devils Marbles Campground · from A$8/night
- 7
Karlu Karlu to Alice Springs
390 km · 4hCrank south across the Tropic of Capricorn and into the heart of the continent. Wauchope, Wycliffe Well and Ti Tree tick by before the MacDonnell Ranges rise like a red wall on the horizon. Alice Springs - Mparntwe to its Arrernte custodians - is the desert capital: restock, refuel and settle in beneath the ranges.
Highlights Tropic of Capricorn marker · Alice Springs Telegraph Station · Todd Mall
Stay BIG4 MacDonnell Range Holiday Park · from A$46/nightcheck availability
- 8
Alice Springs & the West MacDonnells
160 km · 2.5hTrade the highway for a day among the gorges of Tjoritja / West MacDonnell Ranges. Simpsons Gap and Standley Chasm frame the morning light between towering quartzite walls; cool off in the still green water of Ellery Creek Big Hole. Back in town, the School of the Air and the Royal Flying Doctor base tell the story of desert life.
Highlights Simpsons Gap · Standley Chasm · Ellery Creek Big Hole
Stay BIG4 MacDonnell Range Holiday Park · from A$46/nightcheck availability
- 9
Alice Springs to Uluru (Yulara)
450 km · 5hThe final long haul, and the most anticipated. Roll 200 km south to Erldunda, swing west onto the Lasseter Highway, and watch for the flat-topped bulk of Mount Conner - the mesa that fools every first-timer into thinking they have arrived. Fuel at Curtin Springs, then let the real Uluru lift from the plain ahead. Time the desert sunset from the viewing area as the rock burns orange, then crimson, then violet.
Highlights Mount Conner lookout · Curtin Springs · Uluru sunset viewing area
Stay Ayers Rock Campground (Ayers Rock Resort) · from A$58/nightcheck availability
- 10
Uluru & Kata Tjuta
90 km · 1.5hRise before dawn to watch first light catch Uluru, then walk the full 10.6 km base loop - the only way to feel the true scale of the monolith, past waterholes, rock art and quiet sacred sites where photography is asked to stop. In the afternoon, cross to the thirty-six domes of Kata Tjuta and walk into the Valley of the Winds. Come to listen and learn: this is Anangu country, held sacred for tens of thousands of years, and the climb has been closed since 2019 out of respect for its Traditional Owners.
Highlights Uluru base walk · Kata Tjuta Valley of the Winds · Cultural Centre
Stay Ayers Rock Campground (Ayers Rock Resort) · from A$58/nightcheck availability