Aussie Route Planner??

Hi Craig,

In my experience, a "paper" or digital map may be required to gather reference detail for some off road tracks.

When planning our trip to the kimberley, I used the RAA Travel Planner.
You type in the start point (town, location,etc.) and the end point and the result will tell you the distance and approximate time. You can even enter multiple locations along the route and it will provide the full detail of distance and time.

This worked great from Adelaide until I got to Kununurra and then El Questro. No problems to this point.
But entering locations along the Gibb River Road and I all but gave up. One or two locations was OK along the GGR to Derby, but trying to enter stopover locations such as Drysdale River Station, or Middle Lagoon on the Dampier Peninsula, (both locations we are staying at) and the product spits the dummy.
Even tried Bing with a similar result.

So, I have produced a spreadsheet with all the distances we intend to travel each day and the locations we are planning for either an overnight, or an extended stopover for the trip.
No map at this point. I will have to wait until I have recorded the trip on OziExplorer and I can produce a map with our recorded track and waypoints for future reference.

Planning for our Kimberley trip was with the computer at home on the internet, papaer maps and note and travel books/brochures. Then with all the towns, roads and whatevers in a note pad we set out. Only missed what we were not allowed to go to because of closed roads, weather or locked off tracks.

Planning for Cape York and subsequent heaps of trips has been digital with Ozi at home and then transferred to OziCE installed in a navigation and car entertainment unit mounted actually in the dash of the car. Lately we also take a laptop to store our photos, videos and the daily track history. Then for the next day we transfer the tracks etc from the laptop to the dash unit. Never use the laptop for navigation as there is too much on the screen for me to assimilate when I am driving. We both prefer the smaller screen mounted in the dash.

We always take a bundle of paper maps, and a compass, in the car. We still enjoy sitting on a hill with a map laid out on the bonnet with the compass on it, identifying destinations and things to see.

We would never go back to paper planning like that Kimberley trip and are satisfied with Oziexplorer for in car navigation. I can't walk far so we do not need portable stuff.

Phil

That's sort of the trip we want to do next, but we'll be turning around at the Alice and heading home through western Qld. We obviously don't have the holidays that you have and I'm jealous!
Aw heck, I'm in my early 40s and am supposedly of the computer generation but I think there's nothing better than weeks of poring over the book of maps on the kitchen bench and arguing about which route is better because we've been there and there, and jotting down possible routes and roughly adding up the k's...
(And then the control of the aforementioned book of maps is mine on the road!)
My satnav is honestly only for getting us through the funny little shortcuts along the western suburbs of the Gold Coast.
I love showing my book of maps to fellow travellers who ask how the road is to Camerons Corner, or asking which is the best road to Hughenden...
I love making little pencil notes in it...
:)

Hi Craig

While I do trip planning on paper maps where I can see the overview, I do use a couple of trip planners, but now find Google maps as good as any. None of them are suitable for outback tracks. With Google maps, you can drag the route onto another road. You can also vary the route by adding an interim destination. For example use Derby WA to Wyndham WA and Google takes you via the highway. Add Mount Barnett as an interim destination and you get the Gibb River Road. Google will take you via the Tanami, and the Plenty.
Plenty Highway Tanami and Gibb River Roads

Google tracks the Savannah Way except the Roper Bar Limmen section.
Savannah Way


Motherhen

In addition to the ideas above, try Bing maps ( Microsoft's version of Google maps).

Unlike Google, it will let you go on many 4wd tracks and most dirt roads. It will even let you navigate across the Simpson desert and Hay River track.

Like google you can place points to for it to go the way you want instead of the default routing, but unlike google it will let you include minor dirt roads.

Eg

Finke to Birdsville ( forcing it to try to go via Poepple corner)

Hi travellers,

I had a crack at Google maps again last night, doing the "add destination" thing. I thought I was on a winner until I wanted to go past Roper Bar, Limmen Bight area. I could add the destinations but it wouldn't calculate distances etc.

So there we have it, from the responses received, it looks like the quickest way to plan is to still use a map and calculator at some point. In the time it took me last night on the computer, I could have had the distances written down, in sections, to add or delete extra legs if required.

Any techno heads out there could design a program or app and make a bit of money from 4wders etc.

See you on the track,
Craig