Australia

Vehicle Cleaning

All goods entering Australia must be free from soils, seeds and other non-indigenous items. Hence, to comply with this requirement, your vehicle should be thoroughly cleaned.

See East Timor Country Info for advice on vehicle cleaning in Dili.

HEMA's Touring Atlas.
If you're struck for cash, it's perfectly legal (in some states) to sell the spare wheel just to buy this map.

Road maps for Australia

Australia is NOT one country: it is a collection of 8 states.

Criminals have to be extradited from one state to another via a court hearing. Only some of the states have a compulsary annual vehicle inspection. Road signing standards and techniques differ from state to state. I could go on and bore further. In fact I shall. Tax on vehicle fuel differs from state to state. The road numbering system changes as you pass from New South Wales into Victoria (highway 39 becomes the A39; road 31 becomes the M31). Had enough? Ok, I'll stop.

The UBD atlas (pictured far-left) adds to the state-to-state demarkation. As you pass from one state to the next, there is no indication of the continuation page at the edge of the map, whereas within each state, the continuation page is advised. This aspect alone is sufficient to let the kids use it as a colouring book.

On the other hand, HEMA publish a superb range of maps. The "Touring Atlas" (pictured near-left) includes no such annoyancies, even sensibly changing scale from page to page depending on the requirement to show more detail.

HEMA also publishes other masterful mappings of specific areas of Australia, which in total would warrant the expense of building an extension on your house solely devoted to their storage.

For some strange reason, UBD do publish very good city street maps. However, for an all-Australia map, go for the HEMA.