Regional road trips: Sydney to Adelaide via Broken Hill

Credit: iStock

What better time to take a road trip than when flights are limited but the borders are open? Here’s how we made the journey amazing.

As much as we love Sydney, when the news came through that the border between New South Wales and the “heaps good” state of South Australia had finally opened up, the drool began pool at the feet of our stools at the thought of a freshly popped Barossa Shiraz paired with some locally raised, grain-fed, medium-rare porterhouse steaks and a few cold Cooper’s Ales.

So, we fired up Google Maps, checked the oil and began plotting our course back to the southern friends and family who we hadn’t seen in the flesh since the pandemic had landed and forced us apart like two positively charged ions.

The only complication was that while SA and NSW were unlocked and mostly fancy free, Victoria was still under lock-and-key and needed to be avoided at the border altogether.

What that meant was a lateral drive out to the far west of New South Wales, a 90-degree left turn at Broken Hill and a slow burn down through the SA desert to Adelaide.

All up it was going to take around 18 hours on the road. 

The good news? With our favourite devices packed and an Optus SIM locked and loaded with stacks of data, we had everything we needed to make this road-trip one for the ages.

Leg 1: Sydney to Dubbo – 5 hours, 390 Kms

The first album of a road-trip is possibly the most important one.

It sets the tone for the journey and fills the team with optimism and excitement, fresh with the anticipation that comes from crisp morning air and your first cup of coffee warming up the cup-holder and probably making a mess of your car already.

First-track honours went to lo-fi indie band The Stroppies – the Melbourne supergroup who rode the dole-wave to a loyal following and several infectious albums. Featuring members of The Stevens, Dick Diver and Boomgates, their no-frills, high-energy and happy sound is the perfect pitch to open any optimistic road-trip out to the desert and back again.

Thanks to Spotify’s suggestion feature, one tap of the play button easily saw us to our first Maccas drive through and on to a fuel break at Dubbo with some solid sounds from some of Melbourne’s finest underground bands.

Leg 2: Dubbo to Cobar - 3 hours, 301 Kms

After indulging at the delightful PK’s Bakery and filling up (the car) on Unleaded, it was time to take the tempo down a notch and settle in to the second act of our epic adventure.

The only man for the job? Bill Burr, the titular star of the aptly titled Bill Burr’s Monday Morning Podcast.

Since 2007, Bill, a microphone and his 4^th grade reading level have been entertaining millions with crude humor, hilariously amateur NFL commentary and genius insights into the human condition.

Never has one man’s stream of consciousness, swear words and life-advice been so captivating and consistently giggle-inducing.

The catch? The next time we spoke to someone outside of our car, we realised we’d picked up a few key phrases – like “ow Jesus” and “Freeee” – plus a reasonably rawcus “Bawston” accent. But they didn’t seem to mind.

Leg 3: Cobar to Broken Hill – 4 hours, 45 minutes, 460 Kms

This was the sunset shift, so something a little more maudlin felt fitting as the curtain came down on day 1 of our big adventure.

We switched from the belly laughs of Bill Burr and over to the gasp-inducing anecdotes of journalist Adam Shand and his thorough deep dive into the fascinating case of gangland lawyer Nicola Gobbo - AKA “Lawyer X” – on Adam’s Understate podcast via Spotify.

The true-crime tale of informants, murder, treachery and intrigue was as addictive as the bag of chocolate covered gingerbread we picked up in Cobar, which also was impossible to stop once we’d started.

As the sun descended in front of car while we hurtled toward our accommodations for the night, the melancholy power of Magnolia Electric Co by the late great Songs Ohia, AKA Jason Molina, provided the soundtrack.

Not for the fragile hearted, the combination of a very unique year and the reprisal of the chorus from Farewell Transmission (track 1) at the end of John Henry Split My Heart (track 7) didn’t leave an eye in the car dry as we blasted through the blackness between us and Broken Hill.

We pulled into our hostel, took a shower, cracked a cold beer and caught up on the Premier League via iPad before heading to bed in preparation for the next big day. 

Leg 4: Broken Hill to Yunta – 2 hours, 197 Kms

Dawn in the desert deserves something special, so Trevor Adamson from the town of Fregon* in the Anangu lands of far-north South Australia seemed a fitting soundtrack.

Singing in his local language of Pitjantjara, Trevor’s songs laced the arid land with a sense of authenticity as it zoomed past our car’s windows and off into the distance behind us.

But that was just the beginning. Because now that we’d woken up and the sun was higher in the sky, it was time to boost the mood with something more energetic. Enter DMAs, the stunning Sydney export who are sending their unique brand of Manchester inspired Brit-pop back to the UK.

There’s nothing better than THE GLOW for a road-trip singalong, with everything coming to a crescendo at track 3, Silver. We’re not sure what we sounded like to anyone (or anything) outside of the car, but let’s just say we earned a few fans among the local emu population.  

Leg 5: Yunta to Adelaide – 3 hours, 30 minutes, 320 Kms

After an early lunch break (shout out to Yunta Hotel and rest area), we decided it was time to give our parched pipes a rest and focus on our intellectual pursuits.

The Secret River by Kate Grenville on Audible was an appropriate audiobook for the time and place. It’s about a convict, transported to New South Wales with his family in the very early 1800s, who sails up the Hawkesbury River to claim land once freed.  

The Weekend Australian called it “…fabulous historical fiction.” We called it un-put-down-able, even as we rolled into Adelaide at the end of our journey. We were even tempted to cut an extra lap up to the Barossa and back, just to finish it off.

In the end, our friends didn’t mind that we brought our portable speaker out at the same time as our Pikes Riesling and fresh oysters – the perfect way to end our amazing journey down to the beautiful South Australia.

Pick a plan with enough data to handle it and add the phone, tablet and accessories to help make it the road trip of a lifetime.

With international flights suspended, now’s the time to seize your opportunity to explore our beautiful county and help support some local economies along the way.

Check our Mobile Network coverage map to see where you’re covered in Australia.

_{*Yes, we are aware that Fregon in far-north South Australia is nowhere near Broken Hill and New South Wales.}