In January I had a spreadsheet open most nights. It listed every place I could buy diesel between the Gold Coast and Katherine, with a column of prices I'd checked by hand across three different apps, and a fuel economy figure that was really a guess: what I remembered getting when towing the van, carried the whole way to the Top End.
The more I read, the less I trusted that number. Headwinds, climbs and rough roads all change what a van costs you, and nothing I was using allowed for any of them. Then there were the questions no fuel app answered at all: will a van this long fit under the canopy, can I get in and out with it on the back, and do they sell AdBlue? Prices were climbing fast, and the cheapest diesel was hard to find. The planning tools felt rudimentary for a trip like this.
So I started building something better. This is the story of the trip it was built on.
The Barkly Highway, NT. Photo: Pavel Špindler , CC BY 3.0 .
How it started
The trip was my mate's idea. We'd started planning it a year earlier at the Mundi Mundi Bash, and with his 60th coming up it grew into something bigger: get away, and do something properly adventurous. He and his wife left Sydney a few weeks ahead of us, crossed to South Australia and headed north up the Oodnadatta to Uluru. My wife Sam and I would come up through Queensland and meet them somewhere north of Tennant Creek.
We left on a Friday night in mid June to get a head start, and stayed at Bulahdelah. We called in on Sam's dad in Alstonville, then spent a few days on the Gold Coast, where Sam had a work conference and I worked from the caravan. I took the van up to Coolum to get the underbody protection done, and on Friday 19 June we pointed the Defender west.
The Defender 110 and our Zone RV Peregrine in the Top End. Photo: Shane Lord.
Coding from the caravan
FuelOracle came with us as a very early version. The iOS app was in alpha testing, and the Android app hadn't been started. I was fixing bugs and writing new code as we travelled, usually after a fill that didn't quite line up with the plan, or a bug I didn't expect. Sam was very forgiving.
The real road found problems a test never would. The fuel planning engine itself had bugs that only showed up with a van on the back and a real tank emptying. Sam filled in the height restrictions for most of the fuel stops we used, and she came up with the idea for the warning FuelOracle now gives when a station is hard to get into with a large car and van. Checking height, access and AdBlue before you commit to a stop all came out of those weeks.
So did "Don't stop here". Near Berry Springs I poured 60 L from the jerry cans into the tank purely to skip a stop the plan wanted, because there was no other way to tell it no. Jerry can tracking was rudimentary then too. FuelOracle now plans around your jerry cans properly, and a skipped stop is a tap.
Where the plan met old habits
The goal was to let FuelOracle's Smart Fill decide where to fill and how much. That lasted until we met our friends at Daly Waters.
The Daly Waters Pub. Photo: Lakeyboy , public domain.
Two rigs travelling together turned out to be a different problem. Their car and van used fuel very differently to ours, and their tank was 10 L smaller. The easy answer was the old one: fill to full, at the cheapest station we could find. My wallet didn't love it. Over the whole trip we spent $3,537.74 on diesel, about $34 more than filling to full at every stop would have cost, and the dearest fill was 245 c/L at Camooweal.
FuelOracle has got a lot smarter since then. Planning for two rigs travelling together is on the roadmap, and I have some ideas there I'll keep to myself for now. If it's something you'd use, I'd like to hear from you.
The places
We did a lot in a tight timeframe, and it never felt rushed.
Set up at Bitter Springs, Mataranka. Photo: Shane Lord.
The Barkly Homestead is a great oasis on a long stretch of road. There aren't many other options, but even if there were, why miss it? Daly Waters is a quirky place with the best barramundi I've ever eaten. Bitter Springs has to be seen to be believed. The Yellow Water cruise in Kakadu was stunning, with the sun setting over the wetlands. And Charlotte Plains is on my list to get back to. One night there was nowhere near enough.
Yellow Water, Kakadu, at sunset. Photo: Iambexta , CC BY-SA 4.0 .
What the trip turned into
Everything I worried about in January is now part of FuelOracle. It plans fuel for your actual rig, allows for wind, climbs and road surface, learns your real towing economy from your fills, checks height and access for large rigs, and plans around your jerry cans. The iOS and Android apps are both out.
If you're planning a big drive of your own, give FuelOracle a go . It's free for short trips and the fuel price lookup, there's a 7-day free trial, and a Trip Pass gives you everything for 60 days for $14.99.
Prices are what we paid in June and July 2026. Fuel price data for New South Wales, the ACT and Tasmania is sourced from FuelCheck, provided by the NSW Government (NSW Fair Trading) and licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike. Based on or contains data provided by the State of Queensland (Department of Energy and Climate) 2026. In consideration of the State permitting use of this data you acknowledge and agree that the State gives no warranty in relation to the data (including accuracy, reliability, completeness, currency or suitability) and accepts no liability (including without limitation, liability in negligence) for any loss, damage or costs (including consequential damage) relating to any use of the data. Data must not be used for direct marketing or be used in breach of the privacy laws. Northern Territory fuel price data © Northern Territory of Australia, sourced from MyFuel NT and used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. FuelOracle is an independent app. It does not represent a government entity, and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or authorised by any government entity or any of the agencies whose data it displays. Prices are indicative only and may differ from the price at the bowser.
