On my travels along the east coast of Australia, I accumulated a lot of experience, especially as a solo road-tripper. Some of what I learnt was just plain old common sense, other things I picked up through trial and error, and then there was the stuff I learned from simply failing miserably. I thought it would be fun to share some of the hints and tips that I’ve gained along the way, to help any of you that may be planning a similar trip.

For this first tip, I thought I might focus on one of the safety aspects of driving on Australia’s outback roads (if you can call them roads that is). I’m not talking about the little roads in the rural areas of Australia, I’m talking about the seriously outback, unsealed and often unkept roads. They are called the Developmental Roads.

My first encounter with a developmental road was on the Cape York Peninsula. My goodness what a shock to the system this was. I could write a whole book just about surviving this one road. However, today I’ll just focus on one aspect of the dangers these roads have to offer. The “dip” in the road.

It doesn’t sound that bad and I never actually came across one that didn’t have a sign, but some of these dips can be brutal and quite often the sign appears at the last moment. The scary and most dangerous thing about these dips, is that you can’t see them until you’re on top of, or should I say, down in, them.

These dips are usually there to allow excess water to drain over the road when it rains. Depending on the time of year and the weather, you could be greeted with a number of different scenarios. A soggy mud pit to get stuck in, or at dried up, cracked trench that can send your shock absorbers running home to mummy, to name a few.

So “how can you not see these dips?” I hear you cry. Well, it’s a matter of perspective. Big stretches of these roads are so long and straight and look exactly the same mile after mile, that when a section dips below the general level of the road and then back up again, it creates an optical illusion and your eyes perceive one continuous stretch of unbroken road.

I remember coming across one early in that trip and completely missed the sign. I didn’t know the dip was there until the car droped below me and my stomach shot in my mouth. Which was kind of cool for all of the moment until we (the car and me) came crashing down hitting the trench at the bottom at 80 Kms p/h. I thought every atom had just exploded. Scared the bejeebers out of me. From that moment on I kept a clear eye out for these “DIP” signs and realised I needed a lot more concentration than a regular road.

Of course these dips can be on any of the roads throughout Australia, they just seem a lot more severe on the Developmental Roads. At least if the road is sealed there usually isn’t a nasty surprise waiting for you at the bottom. One thing’s for sure, these are not the kind of roads you can drive on autopilot. Concentration and observation are key in having a safe trip and surviving some of our most spectacular roads.

To find out more about these and other roads throughout this country, I suggest taking a look at the Oz Roads web site.

If you have your own road trip travel tips or survival tips and would like to do a guest blog post, please get in touch through my contact page, I’d love to hear your ideas.