Beth, Betsy and 6000 Kilometres of Going Solo

When Beth Ollason’s friends were forced to pull out of their planned three-month Western Australian adventure, she had two choices: cancel the trip or go anyway. She went anyway. Almost 6000 kilometres later, after beaches, red dust, lobster boats, a few campervan lessons and one entirely unexpected purchase of pearls, Beth came home knowing that solo travel wasn’t simply something she could do; it was something she wanted to keep doing.

Sometimes the best adventures begin when the original plan falls apart, and that is pretty much what happened to my long-time friend Beth. When we sat down recently to talk about her three-month campervan adventure through Western Australia, I was interested in more than where she had been and what she had seen. I wanted to know what had made her decide to go ahead with such a big trip on her own, particularly when travelling solo hadn’t been part of the original plan at all.

“I was confident, but apprehensive,” she told me as the waitress delivered two chai lattes to our table. That was understandable because, although Beth had travelled plenty before and had done walking holidays where she stayed in B&Bs, she had never driven or lived in a campervan. Now she was flying to Perth, collecting one and heading off alone for three months.

Trying campervan life before buying

In some ways, hiring a camper before buying one turned out to be one of the smartest decisions she made. Beth didn’t know whether she would actually enjoy campervan travel, and there is a big difference between liking the idea of it and enjoying the reality of living in a relatively small space for weeks at a time. Hiring gave her the chance to find out without first spending a sizeable amount of money on a vehicle of her own.

Even without a rigid itinerary, a trip of that length still requires some preparation. Beth had to think about how long she could afford to be away, likely fuel and accommodation costs, what sort of camper she would be comfortable driving and roughly which parts of Western Australia she wanted to see. Thankfully, these days there is no shortage of information online, and talking through ideas with friends can be just as useful. Eventually, though, you reach the point where the research has done its job and you simply have to go.

Beth hired through Britz, which she says was a sensible choice for a first campervan trip because they are a well-established company with support available around Australia. The route itself was far less structured.

When I asked how she had chosen where to go, her answer was wonderfully simple.

“I just made it up as I went,” Beth smiled before taking another sip of her chai latte. That freedom became one of the things she enjoyed most.

Lesson number one: don’t accept a dud camper

Beth admitted that her introduction to campervan life wasn’t particularly glamorous. She collected the first vehicle and quickly began finding things that weren’t working. Then she found a few more, and her opinion of the camper deteriorated fairly rapidly until, in Beth’s words, she decided it was “a bit of a shitbox”, so she took it back.

That sounds obvious, but there is a useful lesson in it. Once you have flown interstate, collected the vehicle and mentally started your holiday, there can be a temptation to put up with problems because you don’t want to make a fuss. You tell yourself that a broken blind or faulty appliance probably isn’t worth worrying about, but three months is a long time to live with something that annoyed you before you had even left the depot.

Beth went back and explained that the camper wasn’t what she expected or what she believed she had paid for. Thankfully, she ended up with a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter-based camper instead. It was far more comfortable, automatic, diesel powered and much closer to what she had imagined when she booked the trip.

Betsy joins the adventure

Once she had the right camper, things settled down quickly. Somewhere down the road, the Mercedes Sprinter became “Betsy”, and Beth admits she soon began to form a bit of a bond with her new travelling companion. The setup was straightforward, the blinds and living arrangements were easy enough to work out and Betsy herself proved much easier to drive than she had expected. There were still the usual things to learn, including the various switches, tanks and appliances that come with living in a camper, along with things like AdBlue, but none of it was particularly difficult.

She also discovered something most travellers learn sooner or later: if you are unsure, ask. People are generally more than happy to help.

Heading north through Western Australia

With the camper now sorted, Beth began exploring. Travelling through the south-west before eventually heading north along the Western Australian coast to Broome and then back again. By the time she returned Betsy she had covered almost 6000 kilometres.

Western Australia has an interesting way of changing your understanding of distance. On the east coast, a couple of hundred kilometres can sound like a fairly serious drive. In WA somebody will tell you the next place is “just up the road”, and several hours later you begin to wonder whether the two of you had been talking about the same road.

The landscape stretches away in enormous slabs. And there are long sections where the road appears determined to continue towards the horizon indefinitely. Every now and then there is a roadhouse, a small town or another vehicle coming the other way. And then the scenery changes again and you find yourself beside brilliant blue water, pale beaches and cliffs that seem impossibly bright against the surrounding country.

Of course, no long trip through Western Australia would be complete without becoming acquainted with the red dust. It has a remarkable ability to get into places you didn’t know existed, finding its way into shoes, floor mats, door tracks, chairs and corners of a camper that appear to have been sealed since the vehicle was built. You sweep it out, wipe things down and congratulate yourself on having everything clean. Only to discover a fresh layer shortly afterwards. After a while you stop treating it as dirt and begin regarding it as part of the décor.

Finding places that felt right

Beth mostly stayed in tourist and caravan parks rather than relying heavily on free camps. For a first solo campervan trip, that suited her because she liked having facilities available and, importantly, she felt comfortable staying there on her own.

When I asked about safety, Beth said she felt safe most of the time because she didn’t put herself into situations where she thought trouble might develop. I think that is an important point. Solo travel isn’t about proving how brave you are or staying somewhere that makes you uncomfortable simply because you had planned to. If a place doesn’t feel right, move on. There is always another caravan park, another campsite or another town further along the road.

Finding her travelling rhythm

By the end of the first day Beth remembers thinking, “I can do this.” She still had another couple of months ahead of her, but the biggest hurdle had already disappeared. Driving Betsy was easier than expected. Setting her up was manageable and Beth quickly settled into the rhythm of looking after herself on the road.

“I cooked most of the time,” Beth told me, which helped keep some of the costs under control. Fuel, on the other hand, was simply one of those expenses that had to be accepted. Western Australia doesn’t take much interest in your fuel budget. The places you want to see are where they are, and unfortunately nobody has yet worked out how to move Broome a few hundred kilometres closer to Perth.

Beth also made the most of the places she stopped. Often walking at least 10 kilometres a day while exploring beaches, lookouts and walking tracks. Having always enjoyed walking holidays, she found travelling by camper gave her a completely different way to explore without taking away one of the things she already loved doing.

The freedom to set your own pace

The big difference was freedom. If she found somewhere she liked, she could stay a little longer. If she wanted to keep walking, she could. If she became distracted at a lookout and lunch happened at three o’clock, nobody was standing beside the camper wondering when she intended to leave.

There is a certain freedom in solo travel that is difficult to appreciate until you experience it. You still have responsibilities, of course, but you are no longer negotiating every decision with somebody else. For much of the time, the only timetable that really matters is your own.

Falling for Kalbarri

Ask Beth to nominate her favourite place and she struggles because there were too many good ones. But Kalbarri comes very close. The beaches, lookouts and coastline left a lasting impression, along with the town’s connection with the lobster fishing industry.

Kalbarri is one of those places where the scale of Western Australia becomes particularly obvious. The Indian Ocean stretches away on one side. While the surrounding country reminds you just how far you have travelled to get there. There is space to walk, space to think and, when you are travelling alone, plenty of opportunity to decide exactly what you feel like doing next.

The cost of going alone

There was one unavoidable downside to Beth’s friends pulling out of the trip. The original plan had involved sharing some of the major expenses, particularly the camper hire and fuel, but once she went alone those costs became hers.

That made the trip considerably more expensive than originally intended. And, by the end of the three months Beth had reached the conclusion that hiring a camper for another long trip probably wouldn’t make financial sense. If she was going to continue travelling this way, buying something of her own would be more economical.

That didn’t mean hiring had been a mistake. Quite the opposite. It gave her the opportunity to answer the biggest question before committing to buying anything: did she actually enjoy campervan travel? By the end of the trip, the answer was very clearly yes.

There was also one unexpected expense along the way. When I asked Beth whether anything had caught her budget by surprise, she thought about it for a moment and said, “Yes. I bought pearls.”

Fair enough. There are some things even the best travel budget cannot be expected to anticipate.

From hiring Betsy to wanting a camper of her own

By the time Beth handed Betsy back at the end of the trip, her thinking had changed quite dramatically. The woman who had arrived in Perth wondering whether she could manage three months travelling alone was already thinking about the next adventure and, more importantly, had decided she wanted a camper of her own.

Beth is now looking at travelling with a 4×4 ute and slide-on camper and hopes to do more free and off-grid camping in the future. That will bring a different set of experiences and probably a few new lessons, but after three months with Betsy, she has a much better idea of what she wants from the next stage of her travelling life.

Sometimes the second plan is better

What I enjoyed most about Beth’s story is that she didn’t set out to prove anything. She wasn’t trying to demonstrate how brave she was or turn the trip into some great personal challenge. She had organised a holiday with friends, her friends couldn’t go, yet she decided she would go anyway.

Three months and almost 6000 kilometres later, she had driven across huge stretches of Western Australia. Walked beaches and tracks, found places she wants to visit again and discovered that travelling solo suits her very well.

She also learnt a few practical lessons along the way. If the camper you hire isn’t up to standard, take it back. If you don’t feel comfortable somewhere, move on. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. And, perhaps allow a little room in the budget for completely unnecessary but thoroughly enjoyable purchases.

Sometimes that is all an adventure needs to do: show you that there are more possibilities ahead than you realised.

Related Reading:

• • • Thinking About Travelling Solo? Start Small
    • Choosing Somewhere to Stay When You’re Travelling Alone
    • Solo Women Travel Australia