Nobody would attempt to "do" all of America in just a few weeks and yet so many people (including ourselves) foolishly attempt to cover the whole of Australia in the same period. I think this is because people tend to think of Australia as an island rather than as a continent that is actually about the same size as the USA (the postcard shops all sell cards that illustrate this point).

Air travel is pretty cheap within Australia (but apparently only when booked from outside Oz) and we deliberately flew as much as possible in order to maximise our available sightseeing time. However, we still used a car to get around in some places and we were really shocked when, at the end of the holiday, we added up that we had actually driven over 2,500 miles. To put this in perspective: it is about the same distance that New York is from San Francisco - and we would never have considered driving right the way across America for a holiday!

The Twelve Apostles - probably the most famous rock formation on The Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Our first experience of driving in Australia was when we hired a car for a day in Melbourne to go on a scenic drive along The Great Ocean Road. They drive on the left in Australia so we felt quite at home on their roads. We had a little trouble, initially, getting out of Central Melbourne - first with its one way system and then with its complete absence of direction signs - but it was still considerably easier than driving around London if only because there was much less traffic in and around the city centre.

A sandstone arch at Loch Ard Gorge The Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Once we'd managed to leave the city, signposts appeared regularly and it was quite a pleasurable and uneventful drive. We continued along the scenic coastal road until just after sunset when we headed back to Melbourne in the dark, oblivious of the potential risk we were taking. There had been very little traffic along the coast during the day so we didn't really notice that there was even less at night. We were taking a shortcut cross-country towards the main highway back to Melbourne when, out of nowhere, a kangaroo bounced across the road directly in front of us! With the cars that we hired in Australia after this, the danger from nocturnal animals was clearly pointed out to us, particularly when we were informed that we wouldn't be insured for any impact with animals after sunset. However, nothing like this was mentioned when we hired this first car which we had specifically planned to drive at night! We did our best to avoid driving at night after this but we did miss this curfew a couple of times. Luckily we didn't have any other close encounters but there were regular reminders in the many dead animals we saw by the roadside: kangaroos, rabbits, lizards, parrots and even cows!

The speed limits are fairly low throughout Australia (60km/h or 37mph in towns and 100km/h or 62mph along major roads) and one of the first things we noticed when we were driving was that everybody was driving at exactly the speed limit - even along the main roads and dual carriageways. We also noticed that nobody parked their cars where they shouldn't (and there were plenty of parking restrictions!) In fact, considering the popular misconception that the Aussies are all descended from criminals, they seemed much more reluctant to break the law than the people back home. Overall, the standard of driving in Australia was very good.

50 miles before we reached Uluru (Ayers Rock), the equally impressive Mount Conner seemed to just appear at the side of the road

We tried not to drive too far in The Outback but we did get a taste of what it must be like to travel huge distances across the vast open expanses of Australia when we drove the 285 miles from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock. The roads stretch out for miles ahead with only the occasional bend in them and the countryside is relatively flat and featureless for miles around except for the regular dips when the road crosses a dried up riverbed. The only break in the monotony is when you pass a dead animal or narrowly miss a bird feeding on one. The speed limit seemed to be unrestricted out there but, as the roads were relatively narrow, we tended to slow down whenever there was any oncoming traffic in order to pass them more comfortably. This was particularly important at night when we also had to watch out for animals while being dazzled by headlights. Unfortunately, the oncoming car would also slow down - sometimes to a complete stop and, with the long distances usually involved, this would make passing the oncoming car a very slow process.

The incredibly red soil near Uluru (Ayers Rock). This is why it is known as "The Red Centre"

We only encountered one of the infamous Australian road trains. These are 3-trailer articulated lorries that are supposed to be over 180ft long and cruise along at 80km/h (50mph). You need a very long and clear stretch of road ahead of you before you can contemplate overtaking one of these mini-convoys. Fortunately, this is quite common in The Outback. Unfortunately for us, we got stuck behind one just as the road entered a long series of bends.

The last place that we drove was around the various sights near Perth in Western Australia. Near to the cities and towns that we visited here and along the main coastal highway, the roads were good but when we drove inland (to and from Hyden), the road often turned into a dirt track with a single-track tarmac strip running along its centre. We would have to drive half on and half off the tarmac whenever we passed oncoming traffic with both vehicles leaving a cloud of dust behind them. Luckily, these roads were fully tarmacked near bends and hill brows to allow safe two-way traffic at these potential accident black spots.

Although each of the cities that we visited was small enough to walk around we still occasionally used their excellent public transport systems. Melbourne is quite compact and easy to cover on foot but it had a free tourist tram that circled the centre with a recorded commentary describing the nearby sights so we often used this to get around.

The sights in Sydney are more spread out but we walked more here, partly because it was warmer. However we did use the busses and trains to go further afield and they were unbelievably cheap - our two-hour ride to The Blue Mountains on a double-decker train cost just £4 each for a return ticket (which was much cheaper than the organised tours).

We had a car while we were in Perth but we left it at our hotel because the traffic was the worst that we had encountered in Australia - which is surprising considering that public transport is free in the city centre (and quite cheap outside its so-called Free Transit Zone).